Abstract

Weather and climate prediction are major examples of efforts to develop and use science-based models for understanding changes in weather and climate and producing predictions such as weather forecasts and climate projections. This chapter explores benefits and perils of weather and climate prediction in six small but important vignettes from the mid-19th to the late twentieth centuries. It argues that predictive efforts in weather and climate science involved three major tensions. First, they represented a form of gambling involving significant promises for science, such as funding and reputation, as well as significant risks, such as failure and loss of reputation. Second, strong political demand for predictive knowledge resulted in increasing pragmatism and a gradual softening of epistemic standards and norms of science. Third, predictive needs strengthened the role of the state in weather and climate science and its control of the uses of predictive tools.