Is climate real? A phenomenological approach to climate and its changes

Keywords: climate, climate change, weather, Anthropocene
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Friday
Session Start / End Time: 2/25/2022 05:20 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/25/2022 06:40 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 17

Abstract

In the face of anthropogenic climate change, the question if climate is real might appear gratuitous. In this paper, however, I argue that it is important to inquire into the nature of climate's reality in order to ultimately understand what is changing with climate change. Are climate and its changes global and/or local, measured and/or experienced? Do the different ways we appear to know climate relate back to one and the same object called 'climate'?

I situate my inquiry into the reality of climate in geography's (historical) struggle to identify and define its key concepts, namely area, region, and landscape. By retracing debates from the 19th and 20th century amongst French, German, and Anglo-American geographers concerning the reality of area, region, and landscape, I show how we are confronted with many of the same issues when trying to identify and define climate today.

Taking Carl Sauer's phenomenological approach in his Morphology of Landscape as a starting point, I argue that phenomenology might be uniquely suited to account for climate's experiential reality; for the ways in which climate not only shapes weather and culture, but the very way we comprehend the world.