On the abuse (and proper use) of climate models
British researcher Erica Thompson’s recently published book is a thorough critique of the world of mathematical modeling. In this episode, she discusses the limitations of models, the role of human judgment, and how climate modeling could be improved.
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Text transcript:
David Roberts
Everyone who's followed climate change for any length of time is familiar with the central role that complex mathematical models play in climate science and politics. Models give us predictions about how much the Earth's atmosphere will warm and how much it will cost to prevent or adapt to that warming.
British researcher Erica Thompson has been thinking about the uses and misuse of mathematical modeling for years, and she has just come out with an absorbing and thought-provoking new book on the subject called Escape from Model Land: How Mathematical Models Can Lead Us Astray and What We Can Do About It.
More than anything, it is an extended plea for epistemological humility — a proper appreciation of the intrinsic limitations of modeling, the deep uncertainties that can never be eliminated, and the ineradicable role of human judgment in interpreting model results and applying them to the real world.
As Volts listeners know, my favorite kind of book takes a set of my vague intuitions and theories and lays them out in a cogent, well-researched argument. One does love having one's priors confirmed! I wrote critiques of climate modeling at Vox and even way back at Grist — it's been a persistent interest of mine — but Thompson's book lays out a full, rich account of what models can and can't help us do, and how we can put them to better use.
I was thrilled to talk with her about some of her critiques of models and how they apply to climate modeling, among many other things. This is a long one! But a good one, I think. Settle in.
Alright, then, with no further ado, Erica Thompson, welcome to Volts. Thank you so much for coming.
Erica Thompson
Hi. Great to be here.
David Roberts
I loved your book, and I'm so glad you wrote it. I just want to start there.
Erica Thompson
That's great. Thank you. Good to hear.
David Roberts
Way, way back in the Mesozoic era, when I was a young writer at a tiny little publication called Grist—this would have been like 2005, I think—one of the first things I wrote that really kind of blew up and became popular was, bizarrely, a long piece about discount rates and their role in climate models. And the whole point of that post was, this is clearly a dispute over values. This is an ethical dispute that is happening under cover of science. And if we're going to have these ethical judgments so influential in our world, we should drag them out into the light and have those disputes in public with some democratic input.
And for whatever reason, people love that post. I still hear about that post to this day. So, all of which is just to say, I have a long-standing interest in this and models and how we use them, and I think there's more public interest in this than you might think. So, that's all preface. I'm not here to do a soliloquy about how much I loved your book. Let's start with just briefly about your background. Were you in another field and kept running across models and then started thinking about how they work? Or were you always intending to study models directly? How did you end up here?
Erica Thompson
Yeah, okay. So, I mean, my background is maths and physics. And after studying that at university, I went to do a PhD, and that was in climate change physics. So climate s
