Making Models Matter: “Coastalizing” Regional Ocean Modelling in the Netherlands

• In Event: Coastalization: Thinking global relations from the coast - II

Abstract

Studies of climate science show how modeling climate change relies on modeling, knowledge production and infrastructures focused on a global scale (c.f. Edwards 2010). In Dutch ocean modelling, emphasis on the global scale has made way for more regional, coastal, and smaller scale modelling. This is perhaps hardly surprising given that nearly one third of the country sits below sea level, the coast a delicate patchwork of dams and dikes. While global models have resolutions of hundreds by hundreds of kilometers, producing knowledge about the open ocean, models produced by our interlocutors range in resolution from a handful of kilometers all the way down to a few hundred meters, modelling ever closer to the coastline. We ask: how are such small-scale models developed, and what relations – both epistemic and social – are valued through them?

Using online semi-structured interviews and digital ethnography, this paper explores scaling in ocean modelling as a valuation practice (c.f. Vatin 2013). Drawing on existing work in science and (e)valuation studies (c.f. Rushforth et. al. 2018), we explore the epistemic choices modelers make within their models (e.g. what types of variables to in/exclude), and their relations with the organization of knowledge production (e.g. knowledge infrastructures, funding). We suggest that while trends in (e)valuation practices and climate change knowledge are oriented towards valuing the global scale, coastalized concerns are reflected in different styles of valuation (c.f. Lee and Helgesson 2019) which in turn make ocean models matter at regional and smaller scales.

Authors

• Jacqueline Ashkin, Center for Science and Technology Studies, Leiden University, the Netherlands

• Thomas Franssen, Centre for Science & Technology Studies (CWTS), Leiden University

• Sarah de Rijcke, Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS)