CSPO enLIGHTeNING LUNCHES

Andrew Hamilton
School of Life Sciences
Tuesday, March 6th 12:00noon
COOR 5536

Models and the Modeling Modelers Who Write Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at General Circulation Projections

Andrew Hamilton, with Special Guests Ryan Meyer and Zach Pirtle

The Modeling Reading Group has been meeting all year to discuss various historical, philosophical, and social aspects of scientific models. In this talk we will present work in progress on one set of questions we’ve been examining: Under what conditions does agreement between general circulation models (GCMs) indicate robust results? What does it mean for GCMs to be independent? How much independence is necessary for robustness? After offering a brief ‘phylogeny’ of GCMs and an even briefer overview of how they work, we’ll walk through a case study of agreement between models and ask what, if anything, agreement does to reduce uncertainty, increase confidence, and lead to better policy decisions.