Julia Vaz explores the Amazon's flying rivers and their unique relationship with climate change in her essay, written for the EEPS 1400 Climate Modeling class during the Fall 2024 semester.

Alejandra Lopez, a first-year PhD student in the Department of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences at Brown University, explored the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) in a paper as part of EEPS 1400 Climate Modeling (Qualitative Track) this past fall semester.

IBES Director and DEEPS Professor Kim Cobb acknowledged the grim reality of increasing global temperatures while asserting that "peak fossil fuel emissions are in reach, this year or next...if we keep our eyes on the prize."

Colorado School of Mines recently announced the appointment of Dr. Stefanie Tompkins as its next Provost, effective May 12, 2025. Dr. Tompkins is a 1997 graduate of Brown with a PhD and MS in geology, and brings a distinguished career in scientific research, public service and executive leadership to Mines.

Some environmental nonprofits and researchers still don’t have access to their federal grants after the Trump administration ordered them halted on Jan. 27. Professor Laurence C. Smith offered commentary, noting that he has three new federally funded projects he would normally recruit graduate students to work on, “but I don’t know whether I should recruit them or not.”

Two new papers, coauthored by Associate Professor Ingrid Daubar, show that meteoroids striking Mars produce seismic signals that can reach deeper into the planet than previously known. Researchers used machine learning to find more than 100 new impact craters near NASA's InSight lander on Mars, many of which could be responsible for seismic events previously thought to be natural marsquakes.

A recent study, supported by Alianza Coachella Valley, reveals the alarming environmental and public health risks posed by the Salton Sea’s ongoing environmental crisis, and highlights the urgent need for comprehensive solutions to mitigate the risks faced by nearby communities. “The community based approach is essential to the success of the research. Our research aims to inform action and that action will only be impactful and equitable if impacted communities are front and center in all decision-making,” said Mara Freilich, DEEPS Assistant Professor, corresponding author on the study, and PI of the NASA grant, ‘Earth Observations for Resilient Salton Sea Communities.’

A recent article features forthcoming research from Assistant Professor Daniel Ibarra and Physics Professor Brad Marston. Their research shows that using crushed rock dust to speed up the rate at which soils absorb carbon dioxide could also affect the climate by making Earth’s surface reflect more or less of the sun’s radiation.

Heatmap queried more than 30 climate insiders, including DEEPS Professor and IBES Director Kim Cobb, about the future of environmental policy.

As part of a large-scale effort to unlock clues about the origins of life on Earth, Brown researchers in the NASA-funded Reflectance Experiment Laboratory (RELAB) are analyzing samples from the asteroid Bennu. Associate Professor Ralph Milliken spoke with the Brown Alumni Magazine about this exciting research, saying “It’s really amazing and humbling to know our group is one of a handful of specialized spectroscopy labs who are working with this material that has been in space for the last four and a half billion years."

After President-elect Trump's comments about taking control of Greenland and the Panama Canal, Professor Amanda Lynch sat down for an interview with NPR's Leila Fadel to discuss the impact of climate change on these important trade routes.

Ice sheet melt has been shown to increase volcanic activity in subglacial volcanoes elsewhere on the globe. DEEPS PhD candidate Allie Coonin and her team ran 4,000 computer simulations to study how ice sheet loss affects Antarctica’s buried volcanoes, and they found that gradual melt could increase the number and size of subglacial eruptions.

Professor Amanda Lynch, who has studied climate change in the Arctic for nearly 30 years, spoke to the New York Times about president-elect Trump's calls to acquire Greenland and the Panama Canal. She notes that the new trade routes created by ice melt could heighten the risk of environmental disasters. “An oil spill or some other toxic accident on that route is inevitable and could already have happened and we just don’t know it,” she said.

Professor Baylor Fox-Kemper, co-author of a study that looks at how climate scientists communicate risk, told Utah Public Radio that it can be hard to describe scenarios in which the actual likelihood of something happening is difficult to quantify. Scientists, he said, frequently want a “big splash,” even before their work is peer-reviewed, in order to drive change — especially if the risk seems substantial. “You don’t want to do something that you don’t have to do, but you also don’t want to fail to do something when you really should,” Fox-Kemper said. “It’s a hard problem.”

For her recent UTRA project, Ava Ward '25 tackled the organization and stewardship of the department's field and camping supplies to help DEEPS students gear up for safer, more sustainable adventures.

Postdoctoral Research Associate Andrea Rajšić has published new research in Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, titled "Using the Melosh Model of Acoustic Fluidization to Simulate Impact Crater Collapse on the Earth and Moon." The publication explores the role of acoustic fluidization in crater collapse, examining vibration properties and their effects on subsurface deformation, with models improving upon simplified approaches to reproduce depth-to-diameter trends on Earth and the Moon.

New images taken from space show how dust on and around InSight is changing over time — information that can help scientists learn more about the Red Planet. “Even though we’re no longer hearing from InSight, it’s still teaching us about Mars,” said science team member Ingrid Daubar, DEEPS Associate Professor (Research). “By monitoring how much dust collects on the surface — and how much gets vacuumed away by wind and dust devils — we learn more about the wind, dust cycle, and other processes that shape the planet.”

On Friday, Associate Justice Brian P. Stern authorized Special Master Rick Land to guide Rhode Island Recycled Metals through the environmental permitting process. During and after the July 10th fire at Rhode Island Recycled Metals, Brown University’s Breathe Providence project detected significant spikes in a particulate matter called PM2.5 in South Providence, Fox Point, Hope Street, and Pawtucket. Meredith Hastings, DEEPS Chair and director of Breathe Providence, commented on the court's decision, writing that it's “a step in the right direction. Industries in the Port of Providence really do need to be held accountable and make changes that will protect the health, well being and quality of environment for the surrounding communities and their workers.”

Two new reports highlight concerns from research and non-tenure track faculty about feeling stagnated in their roles. Jim Russell, senior associate dean of the faculty and DEEPS professor, leads a group developing recommendations to support and promote equity for research faculty, emphasizing their significant contributions beyond lab work: “They’re not just doing research in labs, they’re leading really important research programs.” Ingrid Daubar, an associate research professor in DEEPS, noted her department's supportive environment and expressed her hope for improvements: “One thing I hope comes out of this process is a more uniform experience across the university, where all research faculty feel like a valued part of their communities.”

Fishermen and scientists report that tarpon, a large warm-water trophy fish, have been migrating north. In June, Thomas Czernik, a DEEPS graduate student was fishing for striped bass at night off Aquidneck Island in Rhode Island. “I feel lucky,” Czernik says. “It’s a memory I’ll have forever. I’m thankful.”

Brown’s Equitable Climate Futures initiative is looking to bridge the gap between research and community action by bringing together interdisciplinary teams of researchers and community members. Professor Baylor Fox-Kemper, a faculty director of ECF said the initiative is “science meets social sciences meets outlooks for climate change.”

New research led by Peter Buhler from the Planetary Science Institute proposes that a carbon-dioxide ice cap may have acted as an insulating layer on Mars, allowing rivers and a large lake to form in the planet’s southern highlands. DEEPS Professor James Head commented, "Peter Buhler has done a magnificent job of exploring the implications of possible massive atmospheric collapse and CO2 ice accumulation in the south circumpolar region at a critical early time in the history of Mars."