USS-SWC 2023: Climate Science: Historical, Philosophical and Sociological Issues

The 21st Vienna Summer University was held July 10-19, 2023.

Lecturers

  • Candis Callison (University of British Columbia)
  • Deborah Coen (Yale University)
  • Eric Winsberg (University of Cambridge/University of South Florida)

 

 

Climate science, understood as an interdisciplinary field of study of the Earth’s climate and the causes and effects of climate change, is clearly of central importance today. The summer school will explore climate studies from a historical, philosophical, and sociological perspective. Topics to be covered will include: foundations and methodological issues relating to climate science, including various definitions of climate change, different types of models of climate change, and the use of simulations; further, historical roots and the development of climate science before and after the “computer age”; finally, issues concerning science policy and the communication of findings of climate science to a general public.

Topics

  • Defining climate and climate change
  • Evidence for climate change
  • Modelling climate change: issues of confirmation and prediction
  • Climate change and decision theory
  • History of climate science as a research program
  • Climate science in the public debate