Sack Lunch Seminar (SLS) – Lyssa Freese (MIT) (Pre-defense)

Title: Energy Policy Impacts on Air Quality, Climate Change, and Equity at the National and Global Scale
Abstract:

What is the impact of our energy policy on the earth system, and how, in turn, does the response of the earth system impact our energy policy? As we seek to mitigate the impacts of climate change it is important to understand how different policies impact local environments. In this talk I will discuss two projects where I develop methods to model and quantify the local air quality and temperature impacts of ensembles of policy scenarios. The first is a Green’s function based emulator of spatially resolved temperature response to emissions of CO2, which we use to explore the differences between local and global temperature responses and the pathway dependency of local temperature response. The second project uses a similar method for modeling black carbon pollution in Southeast Asia, where I discuss pollution transport to China (one of the biggest investors in coal in the region) and impacts of retiring coal plants early. Overall, this work aims to bring together earth science research with policy relevant scenarios, enhancing our ability to quantify impacts and uncertainties.

About this Series: The Atmospheres, Ocean and Climate Sack Lunch Seminar Series is an informal seminar series within PAOC that focuses on more specialized topics than the PAOC Colloquium. Seminar topics include all research concerning the science of atmospheres, ocean and climate. The seminars usually take place on Wednesdays from 12-1pm. The presentations are either given by an invited speaker or by a member of PAOC and can focus on new research or discussion of a paper of particular interest. Contact: sacklunch-committee@mit.edu for more information and Zoom password