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Predicting Our Climate Future: What We Know, What We Don't Know, And What We Can't Know
This book is about how climate science works and why you should absolutely trust some of its conclusions and absolutely distrust others.
Climate change raises new, foundational challenges in science. It requires us to question what we know and how we know it. The subject is important for society but the science is young and history tells us that scientists can get things wrong before they get them right. How, then, can we judge what information is reliable and what is open to question?
Stainforth goes to the heart of the climate change problem to answer this question. He describes the fundamental characteristics of climate change and shows how they undermine the application of traditional research methods, demanding new approaches to both scientific and societal questions. He argues for a rethinking of how we go about the study of climate change in the physical sciences, the social sciences, economics, and policy. The subject requires nothing less than a restructuring of academic research to enable integration of expertise across diverse disciplines and perspectives.
An effective global response to climate change relies on us agreeing about the underlying, foundational, scientific knowledge. Our universities and research institutes fail to provide the necessary clarity - they fail to separate the robust from the questionable - because they do not acknowledge the peculiar and unique challenges of climate prediction. Furthermore, the widespread availability of computer simulations often leads to research becoming divorced from understanding, something that risks undermining the relevance of research conclusions.
This book takes the reader on a journey through the maths of complexity, the physics of climate, philosophical questions regarding the origins and robustness of knowledge, and the use of natural science in the economics and policy of climate change.
Climate change raises new, foundational challenges in science. It requires us to question what we know and how we know it. The subject is important for society but the science is young and history tells us that scientists can get things wrong before they get them right. How, then, can we judge what information is reliable and what is open to question?
Stainforth goes to the heart of the climate change problem to answer this question. He describes the fundamental characteristics of climate change and shows how they undermine the application of traditional research methods, demanding new approaches to both scientific and societal questions. He argues for a rethinking of how we go about the study of climate change in the physical sciences, the social sciences, economics, and policy. The subject requires nothing less than a restructuring of academic research to enable integration of expertise across diverse disciplines and perspectives.
An effective global response to climate change relies on us agreeing about the underlying, foundational, scientific knowledge. Our universities and research institutes fail to provide the necessary clarity - they fail to separate the robust from the questionable - because they do not acknowledge the peculiar and unique challenges of climate prediction. Furthermore, the widespread availability of computer simulations often leads to research becoming divorced from understanding, something that risks undermining the relevance of research conclusions.
This book takes the reader on a journey through the maths of complexity, the physics of climate, philosophical questions regarding the origins and robustness of knowledge, and the use of natural science in the economics and policy of climate change.
368 pages, Hardcover
Published January 12, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
October 19, 2023
This has probably been the hardest popular science book to review I've ever read, and because of this I'm going to give a relatively unusual structure to this write-up.
The topic is fascinating. It's about the reality of making predictions - in general, and particularly about climate change. David Stainforth is very firmly of the opinion that climate change is an emergency that requires our action - but he is unusually honest it admitting that the problems of forecasting how climate change will proceed are so great because we face a whole pile of issues along the way.
He highlights how predicting the way the climate will change is a 'one-shot bet' - we don't get to make a forecast time and time again, improving our technique. There will only be a single climate future. This isn't great because we are dealing with a very complex system, we are extrapolating into an unprecedented situation, and the chaotic, non-linear nature of the systems involved make predictions highly dependent on getting initial conditions just right. He also points out how our obsession with throwing computer power at the problem can distract from good design of models, the risk of talking at cross-purposes in an unusually multi-disciplinary science (because there's human science in here too when we attempt to get people to act) and the fact this isn't a purely academic domain, but one the public (rightly) takes a strong interest in.
From this starting point, Stainforth goes on to bring in a series of challenges climate modellers and others face from 'how to balance justified arrogance with essential humility' to 'how can we build physical and social science that is up to the task of informing society about what matters to society', with some thoughts on dealing with these challenges, before pulling it all together.
So, many real positives there. I'd also say that, had he been fiercely edited, he would be a really entertaining writer. Admittedly his attempts at quirky humour can occasionally feel a touch juvenile - when he refers to something being 'a very different kettle of fish' he shows a picture of a fish kettle. Later on, when comparing the predictability of what happens when we boil a kettle with the vastly more complex climate system, he shows us... a picture of a kettle. (What is it about kettles?) However, there is a genial, conversational style to Stainforth's writing, and a refreshing honesty about the limitations we have with certain kinds of prediction.
I should, then, be giving this book five stars - and I would, but it's simply far too long and repetitive. It's only 356 pages including notes and index, admittedly of small print, but Stainforth makes the same points over and over again, and spends many paragraphs making a point that could have been put across in a single sentence. This meant I found myself repeatedly trying to skip through the text to find the next interesting bit.
It's such a shame - and given the impressive nature of the content, I still do recommend reading it. But it could have been so much better with more editorial input. I get the impression that many publishers don't put as much effort as they need to into editing - and this is a great example of why they should do more.
The topic is fascinating. It's about the reality of making predictions - in general, and particularly about climate change. David Stainforth is very firmly of the opinion that climate change is an emergency that requires our action - but he is unusually honest it admitting that the problems of forecasting how climate change will proceed are so great because we face a whole pile of issues along the way.
He highlights how predicting the way the climate will change is a 'one-shot bet' - we don't get to make a forecast time and time again, improving our technique. There will only be a single climate future. This isn't great because we are dealing with a very complex system, we are extrapolating into an unprecedented situation, and the chaotic, non-linear nature of the systems involved make predictions highly dependent on getting initial conditions just right. He also points out how our obsession with throwing computer power at the problem can distract from good design of models, the risk of talking at cross-purposes in an unusually multi-disciplinary science (because there's human science in here too when we attempt to get people to act) and the fact this isn't a purely academic domain, but one the public (rightly) takes a strong interest in.
From this starting point, Stainforth goes on to bring in a series of challenges climate modellers and others face from 'how to balance justified arrogance with essential humility' to 'how can we build physical and social science that is up to the task of informing society about what matters to society', with some thoughts on dealing with these challenges, before pulling it all together.
So, many real positives there. I'd also say that, had he been fiercely edited, he would be a really entertaining writer. Admittedly his attempts at quirky humour can occasionally feel a touch juvenile - when he refers to something being 'a very different kettle of fish' he shows a picture of a fish kettle. Later on, when comparing the predictability of what happens when we boil a kettle with the vastly more complex climate system, he shows us... a picture of a kettle. (What is it about kettles?) However, there is a genial, conversational style to Stainforth's writing, and a refreshing honesty about the limitations we have with certain kinds of prediction.
I should, then, be giving this book five stars - and I would, but it's simply far too long and repetitive. It's only 356 pages including notes and index, admittedly of small print, but Stainforth makes the same points over and over again, and spends many paragraphs making a point that could have been put across in a single sentence. This meant I found myself repeatedly trying to skip through the text to find the next interesting bit.
It's such a shame - and given the impressive nature of the content, I still do recommend reading it. But it could have been so much better with more editorial input. I get the impression that many publishers don't put as much effort as they need to into editing - and this is a great example of why they should do more.
July 31, 2025
It is tempting, so tempting, to respond to the issues of this chapter, and indeed this book, by trying to quantify everything. For many people, particularly the type of researcher or academic who has spent their career processing and analysing the data, there is a huge desire to find the 'answer'. The response to the issues raised is to somehow measure or model or otherwise identify suitable values for all the uncertain quantities, and to use them to find the best possible solution. If perhaps that is acknowledged as impossible then it becomes a matter of finding the 'right' probability distributions for those values; of accurately representing our uncertainty. In either case, such an approach encourages a normative view, an approach that says 'we understand what's going on and this is the right thing to do.' Many people studying climate change, particularly in the physical and economic sciences, have been trained with problems of this nature so this approach comes naturally to them.
Unfortunately, the characteristics of climate change undermine our ability to achieve this in both the physical sciences and the economic and social sciences. Deep uncertainties abound. We don't have a sound basis for giving reliable probabilities for many of the critical quantities. We don't even have a sound basis for capturing the broad and diverse range of human knowledge on the subject: people with different but still highly relevant expertise often come up with very different answers. And yet at the same time, it is certainly not a free for all. Anything, absolutely does not go.
I thought the book packs a solid punch. Only meant for serious readers in the subject. A large part of the author's focus is on taking a close look at climate simulations, their frailties, their lack of diversity, and inherent problems associated with relating them to reality. I thought the book was very interesting and I am sure to get back to it at some point.
November 12, 2024
Excellent book on technical issues facing modeling, if a bit toooooo long. The author could have concentrated on his key messages with half of the length. I learned a thing or two about the technicalities in an approachable manner and sure to revisit some of the diagrams and technical bits more in the future. A central theme is the management of complex systems, characterization of uncertainty, and barriers to continuing development in this area due to issues endemic in academia.
The author did not go into much detail about why human contribution is necessarily dominant in explaining the observed temperature increase. I’d be looking for more tech info on factors that have been identified but poorly modeled, such as slow changing variable associated with the ocean. The mere coincidence is not a sufficient condition.
The author did not go into much detail about why human contribution is necessarily dominant in explaining the observed temperature increase. I’d be looking for more tech info on factors that have been identified but poorly modeled, such as slow changing variable associated with the ocean. The mere coincidence is not a sufficient condition.
September 14, 2024
A very thoughtful and thought-provoking treatment of a range of challenges that arise when we try to turn the basic physics of climate change into concrete predictions. Some novel and/or idiosyncratic ideas about the nature of prediction. The book helped me to understand why climate prediction is so hard.
December 21, 2024
Whilst the message of the book is very interesting, the execution is totally appalling. The message is that modelling of climate and even more so climate change is very difficult because it consists of many nonlinear coupled equations with different timescales. Such a system suffers from the butterfly and hawkmoth effects, which are an extreme dependence on initial conditions and model (parameters) respectively. The results of such a model may be reliable on a global scale, but not so on a more local (regional scale).
That's it. The book then takes well over 300 pages of tedious repetition, simple or irrelevant examples and childish jokes to repeat this message again and again and again and again and again. It just becomes extremely boring reading.
Note: the author makes it clear that there is no doubt about anthropogenic climate change, and this is also my view. So in no way is this about climate change denial. This is just a one star for a very badly written book.
That's it. The book then takes well over 300 pages of tedious repetition, simple or irrelevant examples and childish jokes to repeat this message again and again and again and again and again. It just becomes extremely boring reading.
Note: the author makes it clear that there is no doubt about anthropogenic climate change, and this is also my view. So in no way is this about climate change denial. This is just a one star for a very badly written book.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews