Climate Science for Change

MIT scientists have pioneered efforts to understand the essential dynamics of global climate change and its effects across land, atmosphere, oceans, and ice sheets.

The climate crisis affects everyone. And in many parts of the world, those who are least equipped to handle their changing environment will be disproportionately impacted by it. Much can and must be achieved with existing technologies and policy approaches, including at MIT.

The Climate Project at MIT is a new, whole-of-MIT initiative to respond to the multiple challenges of global climate change. Through this project MIT seeks to become, within a decade, one of the world’s most prolific and collaborative sources of technological, behavioral, and policy solutions — solutions that will change the expected trajectory of global climate outcomes for the better. MIT School of Science researchers will produce the fundamental research needed to accelerate the this work.

MIT’s first vice president for energy and climate

Evelyn Wang stands with arms folded in a dark blue blazer and lilac-colored top

Evelyn Wang, a mechanical engineering professor by trade, began work this spring as MIT’s first vice president for energy and climate, overseeing the Institute’s expanding work on climate change. That means broadening the Institute’s already-wide research portfolio, scaling up existing innovations, seeking new breakthroughs, and channeling campus community input to drive work forward. “There’s no better place than MIT to come up with the transformational solutions that can help shape our world,” says Wang, who is also the Ford Professor of Engineering at the Institute.

Read it at MIT News →

Frequency of extreme storms will ramp up by the end of the century

Tropical cyclones are hurricanes that brew over the tropical ocean and can travel over land, inundating coastal regions. The most extreme cyclones can generate devastating storm tides — seawater that is heightened by the tides and swells onto land, causing catastrophic flood events in coastal regions. A new study by MIT scientists finds that, as the planet warms, the recurrence of destructive storm tides will increase tenfold for one of the hardest-hit regions of the world. In a study appearing in One Earth, the scientists, co-author Sai Ravela, principal research scientist in MIT’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS), report that, for the highly populated coastal country of Bangladesh, what was once a 100-year event could now strike every 10 years — or more often — by the end of the century.

How much carbon can the ocean absorb and how much more it can take?

Researchers propose launching a fleet of oceangoing drones that would continuously monitor the flux of carbon dioxide between the atmosphere and ocean, helping to inform next-generation visualizations and models of the global carbon cycle.

Can we predict sea-level rise from the physics of ice sheets?

Brent Minchew, the Cecil and Ida Green Career Development Professor in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS), wants to more fully understand the most fundamental processes that govern rapid changes in glacial ice, and to use that understanding to build next-generation models that are more predictive of ice sheet behavior as they respond to, and influence, climate change.

Read it at MIT News →