Congratulations!Felix Schaumann successfully presented his MSc thesis

3 March 2022

Photo: Felix Schaumann

We are proud to announce the successful MSc thesis presentation of our SICSS member Felix Schaumann

His thesis "A Philosophically Informed Evaluation of Integrated Assessment Models" was supervised by Prof. Moritz Drupp, Dr. Christopher Hedemann, Prof. Conrad Heilmann and Prof. Johanna Baehr.

Felix investigated approaches for evaluating Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) - crucial tools for analysing climate change and what can be done about it, meant to inform global climate policy. By basing the analysis of IAMs on a review of philosophical literature on modelling, he was able to incorporate a range of perspectives on what models are and what they are supposed to do. Finally, IAMs were evaluated based on different expectations for them, and this evaluation found a lack of clear communication about critical modelling assumptions and interpretations of IAM results.

Felix's future plans?

He will continue to work on IAMs with Prof. Moritz Drupp, as part of the International Max Planck Research School on Earth System Modelling.