Experts react to the US Environmental Protection Agency's announcement that it would undertake massive deregulatory actions, including DEEPS Chair Meredith Hastings and IBES Director Kim Cobb. In an interview with The Herald, Professor Meredith Hastings explained that the EPA’s regulatory system may not be perfect, but federal oversight has been historically crucial in improving air and water quality at state and local levels.

In a new article in Nature Review Earth & Environment, Postdoctoral Fellow Lily Dove explores how, with Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite data, oceanographers are beginning to understand the global distribution of submesoscale currents and their associated vertical motions. This information will inform global and regional-scale climate models, improving predictions of heat and carbon storage in a changing climate.

Professor Amanda Lynch was recently named to the Advisory Council of the The Hague Institute for Global Justice: North World Approach. Building upon the success of The Washington Compact for Off World Governance, The Hague Institute for Global Justice is pioneering a new frontier in global governance with The North World Approach. This initiative is a necessary step towards ensuring sustainable, cooperative, and just governance in one of the world’s most strategically significant and rapidly changing regions—the Arctic.

As President Donald Trump’s administration looks to reverse a cornerstone finding that climate change endangers human health and welfare, scientists say they just need to look around because it’s obvious how bad global warming is and how it’s getting worse. “There is no possible world in which greenhouse gases are not a threat to public health,” said IBES Director and DEEPS Professor Kim Cobb. “It’s simple physics coming up against simple physiology and biology, and the limits of our existing infrastructure to protect us against worsening climate-fueled extremes.”

A new study by DEEPS Professors Colleen Dalton, Chris Huber, Tim Herbert, and Senior Research Associate Weimin Si explores how variations in global mean sea level over millions of years originate from changes in both the climate and solid Earth systems.

Since US President Donald Trump stated his ambition to acquire Greenland by sale or by force, the upcoming election in Greenland and political discourse among the almost 60,000 Inuit inhabitants has acquired a new level of intensity. In a new article in the Journal of the North Atlantic & Arctic, authors Dr. Charles H. Norchi from the University of Maine School of Law and Dr. Amanda H. Lynch from Brown University cast light on the past, present, and future issues of international interest that Greenlanders face in the upcoming elections.

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."

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.”

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.

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.”

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.”

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.”

Politicians and green advocates want to keep the focus on limiting global warming to 1.5C, even though scientists say the planet is already on track to soon breach the target. Professor Kim Cobb offered commentary on the issue, noting that people are “more and more talking about how we can limit overshoot.”

UK-based scientists have used a new calculation method to find that global temperature rise is nearly at the Paris Agreement limit. DEEPS Professor and IBES Director Kim Cobb offered commentary on the study, saying it presents "a new approach to an age-old and critical question."

A recent study in Nature Communications, co-authored by Professor Baylor Fox-Kemper, reveals that turbulence from ocean fronts—driven by submesoscale shear—significantly influences the transfer of heat, gases, and nutrients in the upper ocean layer, impacting climate and ocean productivity, especially in winter, which could improve climate model accuracy.

Kim Cobb, a professor of earth, environmental and planetary sciences and Director of the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society, delivered the Family Weekend keynote about the inflection point at which the world finds itself — and the numerous ways that the current generation of students is rising to face critical climate challenges through research and action. “I am extremely optimistic, mostly because the work that we’re doing here at Brown is illustrative of the engagement of this institution, and our entire community in making solutions that are durable and equitable,” Cobb said.

In a recent study published in Nature Communications Earth & Environment, OCE High School Interns working with Professor Emanuele Di Lorenzo found that marine heatwaves in the Gulf of Alaska have intensified since 2013, disrupting ocean currents known as eddies, which support marine life. Using 30 years of satellite data and climate models, the team examined how these heatwaves affect nutrient-rich ocean currents called eddies, which support phytoplankton. The study revealed that marine heatwaves create high-pressure conditions that weaken coastal circulation, reducing the formation of eddies and threatening marine life.

According to new research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, conducted during three research cruises from 2017 to 2019 in the Mediterranean Sea, scientists discovered that tiny ocean organisms are transported to deeper waters by currents called intrusions, significantly impacting the ocean's ecosystem. “We found that because these organisms are so small, they can be swept up by ocean currents that then bring them deeper than where they grow,” said Assistant Professor Mara Freilich. “It’s often a one-way trip for these organisms, but by taking this trip, they play a critical role in connecting different parts of the ocean.”

This week, the eleventh session of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Research Board considered critical developments in Artificial Intelligence for weather forecasting under the leadership of Board Chair Professor Amanda Lynch.

Following the catastrophic damage caused by Hurricanes Helene and Milton, scientists warn that the Atlantic hurricane season is far from over. Assistant Professor Chris Horvat commented, “The Gulf (of Mexico) remains fairly anomalously warm even at this point in the year, so we shouldn’t relax."

IBES Director and DEEPS Professor Kim Cobb noted that Hurricanes Helene and Milton "should serve 'as a wake up call' for emergency preparedness, resilience planning and the increased use of fossil fuels."

Voss Postdoctoral Research Associate Lina Pérez-Angel discussed the rapid acceleration of climate change in an interview with The Guardian, saying “there’s nothing in Earth’s history that shows a change happening this quickly.”

Since last July, Earth’s average temperature has been at least 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels. IBES Director and DEEPS Professor Kim Cobb spoke with the Washington Post about this trend, saying “We’re dancing about a climate average that is very dangerous for communities and ecosystems around the world.” Read more.

Postdoc Lily Dove explains how seals have become valuable allies with scientists who are studying how the oceans are changing in the remote reaches of the Southern Ocean. Tags on the seals' heads collects data while the seal dives and transmits its location and the scientific data back to researchers via satellite when the seal surfaces for air.

Rhode Island Superior Court Associate Justice Brian Stern has issued a temporary restraining order after a fire at Rhode Island Recycled Metals LLC. The fire released smoke and potentially harmful chemicals detected throughout the city and into Pawtucket by Breathe Providence sensors, according to expert testimony from Meredith Hastings, DEEPS Chair and project lead for Breathe Providence.

New research shows that, rather than an opening of the passage, the safe shipping season declined along several “choke points” through the Canadian Arctic, especially on the northern route. The finding matches expectations that ice will survive longest in the Canadian Arctic, noted DEEPS Professor Amanda Lynch, who was not involved with the study.

Gabriel Traietti ‘25, concentrating in Geochemistry, investigates the terrestrial paleoclimate of the Congo River Basin in Senior Associate Dean James Russell’s lab. He emphasizes how DEEPS gave him the tools to explore his passion for reconstructing ancient climate to help anticipate the effects of climate change on a local level.

Assistant Professor Dan Ibarra and his team have published a special outreach article in in PAGES Horizons highlighting their cave monitoring efforts in the Philippines. Ibarra said, "it is exciting to share our efforts to develop this work in multiple cave systems in the Philippines over the last several years." The work is led by former Voss Postdoc Natasha Sekhon, co-authored by Celia Kong-Johnson, Justin Custado, Carlos CP David, Mónica Geraldes Vega, and many others, and made possible with support from the National Cave and Karst Research Institute and the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society (IBES).

Climate Change AI has announced the grantees for the 2023 Innovation Grants program, including "EMPIRIC_AI: AI-enabled ensemble projections of cyclone risk for health infrastructure in Pacific Island Countries and Territories" lead by Visiting Assistant Professor (Research) Chris Horvat. The EMPIRIC_AI project aims to develop higher resolution climate models and targeted cyclone risk projections to support health resilience for frontline communities.

DEEPS professor and IBES Director Kim Cobb spoke with MSNBC's Alex Witt about the ongoing climate crisis and how 2023 was the warmest year on record.

Research Matters, hosted by the Graduate School, is an annual live event featuring short talks by Brown graduate students on why their research matters. DEEPS graduate student Peter Van Katwyk presented on his research, "Improving Sea Level Projections with AI."

For their AP environmental science and biology field trip, Barrington High School students visited the Blackstone River to learn about Rhode Island's history of pollution. The trip was supported by the RI NASA Space Grant. “We want to get students outside the classroom beyond the textbooks and internet articles they read about,” said Ralph Milliken, Program Director and DEEPS Associate Professor. “So they can understand the interplay on human society and the natural environment.”

Weeks after a massive fire at a metal recycling business on Allens Avenue in Providence sparked environmental concerns, the NBC 10 I-Team discovered dozens of complaints made against businesses on that same street. Professor Meredith Hastings spoke with investigators about Breathe Providence and her ongoing research on local air quality. “Our project is really dedicated to try and understand patterns of air pollution across the city,” Hastings said.

Each year, IBES core faculty, fellows, and affiliates jumpstart their research with the help of IBES Catalyst Research Awards. Assistant Professor Dan Ibarra's Catalyst Award supported his team’s research on weathering fluxes throughout the world.

Professor Tim Herbert commented on new research in Science, saying “The dance of global temperature is primarily not called by ice, but more likely by [carbon dioxide]."

PhD candidate Jared M. Kodero recently published a new article in Communications Earth & Environment, titled “Future transition from forests to shrublands and grasslands in the western United States is expected to reduce carbon storage.” The article examines the anticipated impact of climate change on vegetation in the western United States, particularly the shifts in dominant Plant Functional Types and carbon storage.

Co-authored by 21 international climate experts, including IBES Fellow and DEEPS Professor Baylor Fox-Kemper, a new article in Frontiers in Science offers the first comprehensive analysis of the diverse factors controlling global temperatures and provides a framework for improving warming predictions.