A vast machine: computer models, climate data, and the politics of global warming

In A Vast Machine, Paul Edwards documents the evolution of a broad scientific field that began with the curiosity of a few 19th-century explorers and scholars and now spans a worldwide community of scientists, engineers, and other specialists working with huge quantities of data, immensely complex computer models, and many sophisticated instruments and measurement platforms. As a scholar in science and technology studies, Edwards provides historical context and insightful perspectives on how observations of Earth’s weather and climate have shaped scientific theories and models underpinning weather prediction and climate change—and how these in turn have dramatically affected our “knowledge infrastructure”: the…