Project description
Exploring global climate practices, policies and discourses from space
How do we perceive global climate? The answer to this question is very important, considering that our perception determines our actions and therefore how we manage the climate crisis. The ERC-funded CLIMASAT project will study the history of global climate practices, discourses and policies in the 1980s and 1990s. Focusing on the production, circulation and use of data generated by three Earth-orbiting satellites, the project will test the hypothesis that the ways in which satellite data were collectively negotiated, shared, maintained and used by scientists, economists, legislators, diplomats and the media informed certain understanding and actions about global climate. The findings will offer policymakers and researchers unprecedented insight into how satellite data mediated current perceptions of global climate.
Objective
Answers to how to manage the urgent climate crisis depend on perceptions of global climate. Knowing how they came to be is necessary to open up new possibilities about ways to face it. CLIMASAT aims at establishing a truly comprehensive narrative that integrates various spheres of knowledge to understand how global climate discourses, policies and practices came into being in the approximate 1980s-2000s Europe.
To do so, CLIMASAT substantially places the production, circulation and use of data generated with Earth-orbiting satellites at the centre of historical analysis. Indeed, since the 1980s, much of our scientific, practical and political knowledge about global climate has been increasingly compiled with satellite data, in a process of constitutive co-production. Then processes of data production, circulation and use may have played a role in knowledge-making. CLIMASAT identifies 5 interrelated spheres of knowledge involved in satellite data production, circulation and use: science and technology, economy, regulation, communication, and diplomacy. It sets out the hypothesis that it was through their mutual intersections, as they materialised in processes of data production, circulation and use, that certain perceptions and actions about global climate were collectively negotiated, shared, maintained and used. It focuses the empirical analysis on 3 European satellite programs (Meteosat, Topex/Poseidon, ERS) that provided data on extreme weather events, sea level, and ozone. It demands an interdisciplinary methodology grounded on material and transnational history.
In times of growing public concern regarding our actions on the climate crisis, CLIMASAT delivers unparalleled information and critical analysis about how satellite data-informed perceptions of global climate were made, which is relevant not only for researchers in academia but also for policy-makers and engaged citizens.
Fields of science
Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme
Topic(s)
Funding Scheme
ERC - Support for frontier research (ERC)Host institution
08193 Cerdanyola Del Valles
Spain