Abstract
A number of authors, including me, have argued that the output of our most complex climate models, that is, of global climate models and Earth system models, should be assessed possibilistically. Worries about the viability of doing so have also been expressed. I examine the assessment of the output of relatively simple climate models in the context of discovery and point out that this assessment is of epistemic possibilities. At the same time, I show that the concept of epistemic possibility used in the relevant studies does not fit available analyses of this concept. Moreover, I provide an alternative analysis that does fit the studies and broad climate modelling practices as well as meshes with my existing view that climate model assessment should typically be of real possibilities. On my analysis, to assert that a proposition is epistemically possible is to assert that it is not known to be false and is consistent with at least approximate knowledge of the basic way things are. I, finally, consider some of the implications of my discussion for available possibilistic views of climate model assessment and for worries about such views. I conclude that my view helps to address worries about such assessment and permits using the full range of climate models in it.
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Notes
I have for the most part bracketed nuances of analyses, such as relativisation to speaker, that are irrelevant to my concerns in this paper.
See, e.g., Hawthorn (2012, p. 493).
See, e.g., Moore (1962, p. 184).
See, e.g., Stanley (2005, pp. 127–128).
See, e.g., Hacking (1967, p. 149).
See, e.g., DeRose (1991, pp. 593–594).
See, e.g., Przyjemski (2017, p. 190).
The sense of ‘uncertainty’ used here is epistemic.
It is contentious whether probabilities should be interpreted in objective terms in the context of climate predictions, but the concern here is how to justify the reliance on probabilities rather than how to interpret them. Justification seems to be required if we are to answer the question why we ought to rely on probabilistic climate predictions.
The characterisation of real possibility I use here permits real possibilities to be in the past, present or future. I thus recognise that we are interested in past, present and future real possibilities. In an earlier discussion (Katzav et al. 2012, p. 270) my focus was solely on future real possibilities. Further, note that I am not here offering a necessary condition for being a real possibility but only a sufficient one.
Buckwalter et al. (2020) review and support the case for the view that knowledge can be approximate.
Perhaps DeConto and Pollard are, like me, concerned with epistemic possibilities that appropriately map onto real possibilities. I think this is correct and is supported by some of the language in their paper, such as the use of ‘potentiality’ in the already provided quote about the upper bound of Antarctica’s contribution to sea-levels. But this is tangential to my discussion here. For present purposes, what matters is that DeConto and Pollard are concerned with epistemic possibilities.
Proponents of the ignorance view can distinguish between ‘plausible’ and ‘epistemically possible’ because they think epistemic possibilities require no supporting arguments. In Sect. 4, I will be pointing out that ‘plausible’ in the sense just specified is in practice distinguished from ‘epistemically possible’ because establishing that something is epistemically possible is supposed to require more than just having some supporting argument for it.
Here, and in what follows, I follow climate science research in treating knowledge as evidence. More in particular, knowledge of ice, ocean and atmosphere coupling that climate models cannot currently take into account is recognised to be evidence here. Although we cannot calculate what this impact might be and thus do not have quantitative knowledge of it, we do have qualitative knowledge of it. In other terms, we do recognise in an imprecise way how it can enhance/mitigate effects.
A forcing is a net change in the radiative flux into the atmosphere, one that is due to some factor which, like anthropogenic CO2, is external to the climate system.
I here limit my discussion to full, as opposed to hemispheric, EMICS.
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Katzav, J. Epistemic possibilities in climate science: lessons from some recent research in the context of discovery. Euro Jnl Phil Sci 13, 57 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13194-023-00560-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13194-023-00560-7