Shaping Cultures of Prediction: Knowledge, Authority and the Construction of Climate Change

<strong>Centre for Studies in Science Policy School of Social Sciences, JNU</strong> a Talk on <strong>Shaping Cultures of Prediction: Knowledge, Authority and the Construction of Climate Change</strong> By <strong>Matthias Heymann</strong> Centre for Science Studies, Aarhus University, Denmark. Date: <strong>Friday, 29th January, 2016</strong> <strong>Abstract: </strong>Computer simulation was adopted quickly in the atmospheric sciences since the early 1950s. Successes in weather and climate simulation increased the attraction and authority of this approach. A growing number of groups, first in the USA, later also in Australia and Europe, engaged in the development and use of climate models. Already in the late 1970s, climate modeling had become a dominant resource for the production of knowledge about climate. In this presentation I will present a historical account of climatology and climate modeling and argue: First, climate modeling and simulation have significantly changed the science of climate and the very understanding of the term climate; second, climate models initially served heuristic purposes to investigate and better understand atmospheric processes. Since the 1970s, climate prediction became a predominant role and a new culture of climate prediction emerged. <strong>About the Speaker:</strong> Matthias Heymann is Associate Professor for the History of Science and Technology at the Centre for Science Studies, Aarhus Unversity, Denmark. His research focuses on the history of environmental science and technology. He led a Danish-US research project on the history of science and technology in Cold War Greenland (2010-2013) and currently leads the project "Shaping Cultures of Prediction: Knowledge, Authority, and the Construction of Climate Change". He is Associate Editor of Centaurus and Domain Editor of WIREs Climate Change for the Domain Climate, History, Society, Culture.