Research agendas in climate studies: the case of West Antarctic Ice Sheet research
Concern over anthropogenic climatic change has been the major driver behind the rapid expansion in climate studies in recent decades. However, research agendas revolving around other intellectual or practical problems motivate much of the work that contributes to scientific understanding of present...
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ftrepec:oai:RePEc:spr:climat:v:122:y:2014:i:1:p:299-311 2023-05-15T13:39:50+02:00 Research agendas in climate studies: the case of West Antarctic Ice Sheet research William Thomas http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10584-013-0981-3 unknown http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10584-013-0981-3 article ftrepec 2020-12-04T13:30:42Z Concern over anthropogenic climatic change has been the major driver behind the rapid expansion in climate studies in recent decades. However, research agendas revolving around other intellectual or practical problems motivate much of the work that contributes to scientific understanding of present changes in climate. Understanding these agendas and their historical development can help in planning research programs and in communicating results, and it can often elucidate the sources of disagreements between scientists pursuing differing agendas. This paper focuses on research agendas relating to the possible glaciological instability of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS). For much of the history of this research, which dates back to International Geophysical Year traverses, WAIS instability was thought of as innate rather than climatically triggered, even as a growing program of intensive field research was heavily motivated by tentative links drawn between WAIS instability and concerns over anthropogenic climatic change. Meanwhile, climate models for many years did not countenance instability mechanisms. It is only over the past fifteen years that field glaciological research has been integrated with other forms of empirical research, and that empirical studies ofWAIS have been more closely integrated with the broader body of climate studies. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014 Article in Journal/Newspaper Antarc* Antarctic Ice Sheet RePEc (Research Papers in Economics) Antarctic West Antarctic Ice Sheet |
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RePEc (Research Papers in Economics) |
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Concern over anthropogenic climatic change has been the major driver behind the rapid expansion in climate studies in recent decades. However, research agendas revolving around other intellectual or practical problems motivate much of the work that contributes to scientific understanding of present changes in climate. Understanding these agendas and their historical development can help in planning research programs and in communicating results, and it can often elucidate the sources of disagreements between scientists pursuing differing agendas. This paper focuses on research agendas relating to the possible glaciological instability of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS). For much of the history of this research, which dates back to International Geophysical Year traverses, WAIS instability was thought of as innate rather than climatically triggered, even as a growing program of intensive field research was heavily motivated by tentative links drawn between WAIS instability and concerns over anthropogenic climatic change. Meanwhile, climate models for many years did not countenance instability mechanisms. It is only over the past fifteen years that field glaciological research has been integrated with other forms of empirical research, and that empirical studies ofWAIS have been more closely integrated with the broader body of climate studies. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014 |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
William Thomas |
spellingShingle |
William Thomas Research agendas in climate studies: the case of West Antarctic Ice Sheet research |
author_facet |
William Thomas |
author_sort |
William Thomas |
title |
Research agendas in climate studies: the case of West Antarctic Ice Sheet research |
title_short |
Research agendas in climate studies: the case of West Antarctic Ice Sheet research |
title_full |
Research agendas in climate studies: the case of West Antarctic Ice Sheet research |
title_fullStr |
Research agendas in climate studies: the case of West Antarctic Ice Sheet research |
title_full_unstemmed |
Research agendas in climate studies: the case of West Antarctic Ice Sheet research |
title_sort |
research agendas in climate studies: the case of west antarctic ice sheet research |
url |
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10584-013-0981-3 |
geographic |
Antarctic West Antarctic Ice Sheet |
geographic_facet |
Antarctic West Antarctic Ice Sheet |
genre |
Antarc* Antarctic Ice Sheet |
genre_facet |
Antarc* Antarctic Ice Sheet |
op_relation |
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10584-013-0981-3 |
_version_ |
1766125407502860288 |