Patterns and Impacts of Climate Change

Human activities have altered the Earth's atmospheric composition and its land surface to a sufficient degree that world climates are likely changing as well. It is certainly no longer controversial that human activities have increased atmospheric greenhouse gases, pollutants, and aerosols; nor is it deniable the we have dramatically changed Earth's vegetation and other landscape characteristics. Under these conditions, questions about how the world climate system and its natural variability interact with human forcings are major concerns to the society. Several scientists at SoMAS are carrying out research to quantify the human forcing of climate, to detect the signals and pattern of climate change, and to understand how the climate system works through numerical simulations. Other researchers are more focused on the impacts of climate change on Earth's physical and biological regimes. Around the globe, shifting temperature, precipitation, and storm patterns are driving significant changes in continental runoff, coastal hydrology, and species abundance and distributions. Understanding the links between between natural variability, climate change, and human forcings are key to developing rational strategies for such environmental changes.

Researchers:

Black, Bowman, Chang, Colle, Flagg, Geller, Gobler, Hameed, Knopf, Lee, Lopez, Mak, Scranton, Taylor, Zhang