Séminaire
[Séminaire SAMA de l'IPSL]
Causality is not a trivial notion in science: the emergence of clear semantics for causal claims and of a sound logic for causal reasoning is relatively recent, with the consolidation over the past decades of a coherent theoretical corpus of definitions, concepts and methods of general applicability (e.g. Pearl [2000]) which is anchored into counterfactuals. The latter corpus is of high practical interest and is now routinely used in numerous applied fields (e.g. epidemiology, economics, social science). In spite of their rather consensual nature and proven efficacy, these definitions and methods are not yet fully used in climate science, in particular for studies on the causal attribution of long term trends and/or climate-related events. This seminar will give a brief overview on the main concepts underpinning the causality theory, will sketch a counterfactual approach for causal attribution in the realm of climate science and will then discuss a few implications for the formulation of causal claims regarding climate change.
Séminaires SAMA de l'IPSL.
Marc Bocquet & Olivier Talagrand
bocquet@cerea.enpc.fr