Comparative Process Tracing and Climate Change Fingerprints

Climate change fingerprint studies investigate the causes of recent climate change. I argue that these studies have much in common with Steel’s streamlined comparative process tracing, illustrating a mechanisms-based approach to extrapolation in which the mechanisms of interest are simulated rather than physically instantiated. I then explain why robustness and variety-of-evidence considerations turn out to be important for understanding the evidential value of climate change fingerprint studies.

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