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Incorporating human behaviour into Earth system modelling

Nature Human Behaviour volume 6, pages 1493–1502 (2022)Cite this article

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Abstract

Climate change and other challenges to the stability and functioning of natural and managed environmental systems are driven by increasing anthropogenic domination of the Earth. Models to forecast the trajectory of climate change and to identify pathways to sustainability require representation of human behaviour and its feedbacks with the climate system. Social climate models (SCMs) are an emerging class of models that embed human behaviour in climate models. We survey existing SCMs and make recommendations for how to integrate models of human behaviour and climate. We suggest a framework for representing human behaviour that consists of cognition, contagion and a behavioural response. Cognition represents the human processing of information around climate change; contagion represents the spread of information, beliefs and behaviour through social networks; and response is the resultant behaviour or action. This framework allows for biases, habituation and other cognitive processes that shape human perception of climate change as well as the influence of social norms, social learning and other social processes on the spread of information and factors that shape decision-making and behaviour. SCMs move beyond the inclusion of human activities in climate models to the representation of human behaviour that determines the magnitude, sign and character of these activities. The development of SCMs is a challenging but important next step in the evolution of Earth system models.

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Fig. 1: Traditional climate models and social climate models.

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Acknowledgements

This work resulted from a working group supported by the National Socio-environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC) under funding received from the National Science Foundation (NSF) grant no. DBI-1052875. B.B. was supported in part by NASA grant no. 80NSSC20M0122 and by USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture Hatch project no. 1025208. We thank D. Visioni for suggestions that improved Fig. 1.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Plant Biology, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, USA

    Brian Beckage

  2. Department of Computer Science, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, USA

    Brian Beckage

  3. Gund Institute for Environment, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, USA

    Brian Beckage

  4. Department of Environmental Science and Policy, University of California, Davis, CA, USA

    Frances C. Moore

  5. Department of Psychology, Rhode Island College, Providence, RI, USA

    Katherine Lacasse

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  1. Brian Beckage
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Correspondence to Brian Beckage.

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Beckage, B., Moore, F.C. & Lacasse, K. Incorporating human behaviour into Earth system modelling. Nat Hum Behav 6, 1493–1502 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-022-01478-5

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