Podcast: What’s the science behind climate change?

What’s the science behind a warming climate, and can it be combated? In a new All Ears MITpodcast, four MIT faculty members discuss the history and science behind Earth’s warming climate, and whether anything can be done to mitigate a rising global temperature. In particular, the participants explore divergent areas of climate-related research, including coastal flooding, global warming, hurricane activity, and economic policy.

The four faculty members are:

• Dan Cziczo, the Victor P. Starr Associate Professor in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS), whose research analyzes the effects that clouds may have in a increasingly warming climate;
• Kerry Emanuel, the Cecil and Ida Green Professor in EAPS, a co-founder of the Lorenz Center at MIT, author of “What We Know about Climate Change,” and one of TIME’s 100 most influential people in the world for 2006;
• Christopher Knittel, the William Barton Rogers Professor of Energy Economics at the MIT Sloan School of Management and co-director of MIT’s Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research who has studied consumer and company reactions to energy-price fluctuations and implications on effective environmental policies; and
• Andrew Whittle, a geotechnical engineer and professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering who served on the panel reviewing the hurricane protection systems in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina and the safety review of Boston’s Big Dig tunnel system.

These interviews were culled from the Alumni Association’s Faculty Forum Online series — monthly live webcasts that feature faculty interviews on timely and relevant topics. Past podcasts with novelists, professors, and entrepreneurs are available via All Ears MITon iTunes and SoundCloud.

This article is published in collaboration with MIT News. Publication does not imply endorsement of views by the World Economic Forum.

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Author: Jay London is a contributing writer for MIT News.

Image: Splinters of ice peel off from one of the sides of the Perito Moreno glacier in a process of a unexpected rupture during the southern hemisphere’s winter months. REUTERS/Andres Forza.