MIT Climate Symposium: Progress in Climate Science

We all know the Earth is getting warmer, so why do we keep studying climate science? One reason is that the more precisely we understand how and where climate change is happening, the better we can help to guide the development of policies to slow it down, stop it, and adapt to it. There is also great value in climate science as an intellectual pursuit and it would be a lively and vibrant endeavor even if we were not changing the climate.

This symposium will consider what is known about the relationship between greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere and global warming, extreme weather events, and other climate impacts. We will also discuss remaining uncertainties and the prospects for reducing them. Finally, we will explore the projected physical effects of increasing greenhouse gas emissions under alternative mitigation scenarios.

Speakers and panelists will include:

Philip Duffy (Woods Hole Research Center)

Sherri Goodman (Woodrow Wilson Center)

Niki Gruber (ETH Zurich)

Charles Harvey (MIT)

David McGee (MIT)

Jerry Mitrovica (Harvard)

Paul O’Gorman (MIT)

Ray Pierrehumbert (Oxford)

John Reilly (MIT)

Tapio Schneider (Caltech)

Noelle Selin (MIT)

Susan Solomon (MIT)

Maria Zuber (MIT)