42. David Stainforth on climate models and uncertainty

Challenging Climate

David Stainforth is a Professorial Research Fellow at the London School of Economics. David has had a long career studying the climate problem and the challenges of making predictions of future climate change. His research spans the philosophy of climate science, climate economics, climate modelling, and decision-making under deep uncertainty.

In this episode, we discuss David’s new book ‘Predicting our climate future’, exploring the challenges of making predictions about future climate change, and navigating this uncertainty to address climate problems.
Links:

• David Stainforth’s profile
• David’s book, Predicting our climate future

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Chapters

1. 42. David Stainforth on climate models and uncertainty (00:00:00)

2. Intro and background (00:00:33)

3. Main messages of 'Predicting our Climate Future' (00:01:27)

4. Weather vs Climate prediction models (00:07:35)

5. Will we ever be certain that our climate models are “correct”? (00:11:25)

6. The Butterfly effect (00:13:40)

7. Can’t higher resolution models fix all our uncertainty problems? (00:18:27)

8. Shortfalls of current inter-model comparisons (00:21:32)

9. When did anthropogenic climate change become certain? (00:24:39)

10. Can climate models inform climate adaptation and policy decisions? (00:27:56)

11. What’s the one thing you’d improve on current climate modelling? (00:33:35)

12. It’s an interdisciplinary problem (00:36:08)

13. What gives you optimism? (00:39:50)