Abstract - In general usage, ‘storylines’ are causal explanations which help to make sense of a real or imagined situation or sequence of events. They are distinguished from predictions by the incorporation of contingent (i.e. unpredictable) causal factors. Storylines have an obvious power in literature and drama. But they have a pedigree in science too, notably in natural history. Recently, storylines have become an accepted tool within climate science, defined by the IPCC as “a self-consistent and plausible unfolding of a physical trajectory of the climate system, or a weather or climate event, on time scales from hours to multiple decades”. In this talk, I will discuss the rationale behind physical climate storylines, some of the ways in which they have been used to make sense of climate change in situations involving deep (i.e., hard-to-quantify) uncertainty, and some of the questions which keep cropping up whenever I talk about storylines.
Bio - https://research.reading.ac.uk/meteorology/people/ted-shepherd/
Link to join the seminar online - https://meet.goto.com/932307501