ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Revisiting Climate Science and Politics in the 1960s and 1970s: The Role of Simple Climate Models

• In Event: Histories of Climate and Environment 2: Knowing

English Abstract

This presentation revisits the rise of anthropogenic climate change as both a scientific and political issue during the 1960s and 1970s by foregrounding the role of simple climate models. Long before general circulation models (GCMs) became the principal tools of climate science, scientists employed energy-balance models, radiative-convective models, and other low-dimensional schemes to examine the climatic effects of atmospheric CO2, aerosols, supersonic transport, land-surface changes, and others. These models informed initiatives such as SCEP and SMIC, shaped transnational scientific discussions on human impacts on climate, and provided effective frameworks for articulating climate issues within the emerging landscape of environmental politics. Despite their influence, simple climate models were increasingly marginalized within the cultural hierarchy of climate science that privileged dynamical approaches. For some scientists attentive to environmental concerns, they offered a flexible means of intervening in public debates. Yet within mainstream climate science, such approaches were frequently framed as provisional or inferior—useful only as part of GCM development. Focusing on the United States and the United Kingdom, the presentation seeks to show that the epistemic standing of simple climate models was shaped not by technical merit alone but by disciplinary cultures, institutional settings, and political circumstances. This historical analysis invites reflection on the assumption, still prevalent today, that rigorous science must precede political action. Decades of IPCC assessments have yet to break the impasse in addressing the climate crisis. Rethinking the entanglement of climate science and politics in history may help break that deadlock and open new space for political imagination.

Author

• Sang-Hyun Kim, Sogang University