A Collection of Self-Images: Surveys and Interviews Among Climate Scientists

The history of ideas is essential for understanding how scientific knowledge is produced and sustained. This is particularly true for Western climate science, whose intellectual history spans a long period and has undergone several major transformations. These range from climatic determinism and the development of the physics of the atmosphere and oceans to the prominent role climate science now plays in shaping climate policy. Yet, like many natural sciences, climate science pays relatively little attention to its own intellectual history. As a result, influential past scientists, abandoned ideas, and episodes, in which accepted views were later shown to be wrong, can gradually fade from memory. Oral history offers one way to preserve this intellectual history and to “put people behind the science.” It involves interviewing scientists about what happened, how they experienced important developments, and how they and their professional communities perceived the changing role of climate science. To this end, the author and his colleagues have conducted an extensive series of interviews. These include senior climate scientists nearing the end of their careers as well as younger researchers who entered the field more recently.