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LTT: Margherita Harris
November 28, 2023 @ 12:00 pm - 1:30 pm EST
Title: Some Conceptual Problems in the IPCC Uncertainty Framework and Where to Go from Here
Abstract:
Studies of climate change are afflicted by deep uncertainty, the communication of which is made more challenging still by the studies’ immediate policy implications. The world of policy-making has its demands: uncertain information should be communicated in a simple, consistent and relevant manner. To address this, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) uncertainty guide provides both a confidence and a likelihood metric for IPCC authors to characterize uncertainty in their findings.
Unfortunately, as I will try to convince you in the first part of my talk, the relationship between these two metrics is far from clear and this ambiguity has worrying implications for how IPCC authors handle uncertainties and the quality of the information provided in IPCC reports. The aim of the second part of my talk is to critically reflect on what an adequate IPCC uncertainty framework could look like. I will begin by assessing two strikingly different proposals for a new IPCC uncertainty framework (Winsberg’s (2018) and Bradley et al.’s (2017)). After arguing that both proposals are conceptually problematic for distinct and yet related reasons, I will offer my own tentative proposal for a better IPCC uncertainty framework.
This talk will also be available live streamed on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrRp47ZMXD7NXO3a9Gyh2sg.
Details
- Date:
- November 28, 2023
- Time:
-
12:00 pm - 1:30 pm EST
- Event Categories:
- Lunchtime Talks, Lunchtime Talks 2023-24
Venue
- 1119 Cathedral of Learning
Organizer
- Center for Philosophy of Science
- Phone:
- 4126241050
- Email:
- pittcntr@pitt.edu
- View Organizer Website