The Office of Sustainability and The Climate Solutions Initiative have announced the recipients for the Fall 2022 Seed Grants for Sustainability. Recipients include the research project, "Quantifying Carbon Dioxide and Methane Concentrations in Providence, RI," led by Professor Meredith Hastings, and "Detection and Measurement of Methane Gas Leaks on Brown’s College Hill Campus" led by Caitlyn Carpenter ‘25 and advised by Hastings.

Professor Baylor Fox-Kemper explains the effects of different emissions scenarios on our ocean & frozen parts of our planet. Fox-Kemper was one of the Coordinating Lead Authors for the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, Chapter 9: "Ocean, Cryosphere and Sea Level Change."

Two Brown researchers are part of an international science expedition currently off the coast of Portugal. DEEPS graduate student Bryce Mitsunaga and professor Tim Herbert are at sea onboard the JOIDES Resolution, part of a team that wants to learn more about the past and help us plan for, and possibly avert, the worst impacts of climate change.

Assistant Professor (Research) Christopher Horvat and colleagues, using underwater instruments and a NASA satellite, have found evidence of potentially significant blooms beneath the sea ice encircling Antarctica.

Professor Laurence Smith reflects on the impact of drought and climate change on “economic powerhouse rivers” and offers ideas to reimagine their use, such as diverting rivers to deposit sediment on fragile coastline or removing structures to restore rivers to a free-flowing state. “Radical new thinking is the only way to make sure our rivers endure,” he said. “There are no new rivers left to tap.”

To better understand the local distribution of air quality, University researchers (including professor Meredith Hastings) are setting up air pollution monitors across Providence in a study called Breathe Providence. Funded by the Clean Air Fund, the study aims to provide communities — especially those of lower socioeconomic status — with data to inform pollution reduction initiatives.

“All bets are off” when it comes to how climate systems will respond to more warming, warned DEEPS Professor Kim Cobb. This story is part of an ongoing series answering some of the most fundamental questions around climate change, the science behind it, the effects of a warming planet, and how the world is addressing it.

Ethan Kyzivat, PhD candidate in Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences, discusses the challenges in making maps of wetlands and their importance to climate change. This talk was part of Research Matters, featuring short talks about research by Brown University Graduate Students on April 21, 2022.

Kristin Kimble, PhD Candidate in Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences, describes how she uses marine sediment from the tropical Pacific Ocean to reconstruct how Earth’s climate has changed from three million years ago to the present. This talk was part of Research Matters, featuring short talks about research by Brown University Graduate Students on April 21, 2022.

One of the newest DEEPS faculty members, Assistant Professor Harriet Lau, has received the prestigious Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering. This is in recognition of Harriet's outstanding work to understand the relationships between Earth's deformation and climate.

This year, DEEPS graduate student Bryce Mitsunaga and Professor Tim Herbert are participating in the International Ocean Discovery Program Expedition 397: Iberian Margin Paleoclimate.

A new paper published by Frontiers, led by Assistant Professor (Research) Christopher Horvat, challenges our current understanding of the Antarctic ecology and the lifecycles of growth that happen under the ice. 

A recent article by DEEPS Professor Amanda H. Lynch and Maine Law Professor Charles Norchi which appeared in the journal International Law Studies has been awarded the 2022 Myres S. McDougal Prize for International Law. The article is titled "Arctic Navigation and Climate Change: Projections from Science for the Law of the Sea", and is available to read online.

DEEPS Professor Steven Clemens joined Dr. Farah Naureen, Country Director for Pakistan, and Joshua Johnson, host of NBC NOW Tonight, to discuss how low-income countries bear the brunt of climate change.

An interview with the four Brown University undergraduate researchers who worked on Breath Providence this summer, a research study led by IBES and DEEPS Professor Meredith Hastings.

Sometimes learning about the past to figure out the future requires crawling beneath tons of rock. Prof. Kim Cobb, Prof. Dan Ibarra, Postdoc Natasha Sekhon, and Grad Cathy Gagnon, and their collaborative fieldwork with partners at Vanderbilt are highlighted in this long-form article in High Country News, exploring Titan Cave (Wyoming). 

"We're going to see almost a foot – somewhere between nine and 11 inches – of sea level rise by 2050 – a generation and a half, we see that amount," Fox-Kemper explained while standing at the waters’ edge. "And the 2050 numbers are already baked in. So even if we were to cut all of our emissions today, we still are going to see sea level rise."

Why was the long-term global cooling trend of the Cenozoic interrupted by a several-million-year interval of warming during the middle of the Miocene? Herbert et al. present a reconstruction of global ocean crustal production to show that tectonic degassing of carbon can account for most of the long-term ice sheet and global temperature evolution for the past 20 million years (see the Perspective by von der Heydt). These results provide further support for the idea that sea floor spreading rates can control global changes in climate.

Muskrats have been considered so prevalent and unremarkable that even people in tune with environmental goings-on have been unaware of the species’ 50-year decline. Biologists noted the nationwide trend early through trappers’ harvest data, but earnest study is a recent phenomenon.

Sharp fronts and eddies that are ubiquitous in the world ocean, as well as features such as shelf seas and under-ice-shelf cavities, are not captured in climate projections. Such small-scale processes can play a key role in how the large-scale ocean and cryosphere evolve under climate change, posing a challenge to climate models.

Between 26-15 My ago, forests covering west-central North America gave way to open, grassy habitats. Now, oxygen isotope records suggest this shift is owed to drier winters and increased aridity.

Composition of air bubbles can help scientists date Antarctica’s ice caps

As various forces in Rhode Island work toward a more sustainable future, two environmental organizations in the Ocean State have focused on making labor a key player in the transition. Baylor Fox-Kemper explained that both Renew R.I. and Climate Jobs R.I. share goals of “transitioning away from fossil fuels towards carbon-neutral sources like solar,” as well as reducing carbon emissions from transportation, heating, and food production.

A new study led by Prof. Steve Clemens proves that monsoons will become more destructive

JB Novak '20 came up with a more accurate way to figure out past ocean temperatures.