Models, Data, Technology, and Politics: Climate Science in Historical Context

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This proposal would support final research and writing of a book on three key aspects of climate science as it has evolved since World War II: climate models (especially global general circulation models), networks for gathering global meteorological data, and new technologies for modeling, data collection, and data treatment (primarily computers and satellites). Developments in these areas-the most essential underpinnings of modern climate science-were tightly intertwined and interdependent. The book will illuminate the significance of these interdependencies by framing them within a broader political history. Early weather and climate models were developed in a Cold War context, including weather and climate control as possible weapons of war. Later in the Cold War, with the International Geophysical Year and successor international projects, international collaboration for data collection served as part of a trust-building agenda. With the rise of the environmental movement, global climate change began to achieve recognition as a policy issue. Anthropogenic global warming became an important public policy issue beginning in 1988. Since then, global climate change has been among the most hotly debated science-based policy issues in the international arena. Involving library and archival research and oral history interviews, this project will result in numerous articles and presentations, as well as one of the first book-length histories of climate science. The book will explain how such models work, where climate data come from and how they are processed, and how technological development has influenced the nature of knowledge about climate change. It will also treat the important topic of science/policy interaction. Finally, the book will contribute to our understanding of a crucial, but insufficiently studied form of globalization: the dissemination of scientific knowledge, techniques, and instrumentation. Global data networks require high levels of standardization, creating new commonalities in practice and understanding worldwide. With the emergence of climate politics, they are among the forces creating concepts of global systems, global problems, and global common interests.