Climate change

A study by MIT researchers has found that over 65% of the world’s oceans have changed color over the past 20 years and “human-caused climate change is likely to blame,” reports Rebecca Falconer for Axios. The researchers found that: “Tropical ocean regions near the equator have been particularly affected by this steady change from blue to green,” Falconer notes. 

MIT researchers have found that over the past two decades, the color of the world’s oceans has changed significantly, reports Talib Visram for Fast Company. The change “is likely due to human-induced climate change,” explains Visram. “The color shifts matter in that they signal changes in ecosystem balance, which have the power to disrupt fragile marine food webs.”

CNN reporter Jack Guy spotlights a new study co-authored by researchers at MIT, which shows that the ocean’s color has changed considerably over the last 20 years and human-caused climate change is likely responsible. “All changes are causing an imbalance in the natural organization of ecosystems,” says senior research scientist Stephanie Dutkiewicz. “Such imbalance will only get worse over time if our oceans keep heating.”

Researchers at MIT and elsewhere have discovered that the ocean’s hue has changed significantly over the last 20 years, reports Laura Baisas for Popular Science. “A shift in ocean color is an indication that ecosystems within the surface may also be changing,” writes Baisas. “While the team can’t point to exactly how marine ecosystems are changing to reflect the shift, they are quite sure that human-induced climate change is likely behind it.”

A new study led by a team including researchers at MIT has found that more than half of the world’s ocean has changed color in the last 20 years, reports Coco Liu for Bloomberg. “The color shift could be caused by changes in plankton communities that are critical to the marine food chain,” writes Liu. “And biodiversity isn’t the only thing at stake: The shift could also affect how much carbon dioxide the ocean takes up, since different types of plankton have different abilities to absorb it."

Sublime Systems, a startup founded by Prof. Yet-Ming Chiang and former MIT postdoc Leah Ellis, is working to decarbonize cement making – a process which currently accounts for eight percent of global carbon emissions. “The world has a huge appetite for cement, and Sublime is working to scale its production to meet it,” writes Casey Crownhart for The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. 

Sergey Paltsev, deputy director of the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, speaks with WCVB-TV about the pressing need for action to address the climate crisis, following the Earth’s hottest days on record. Paltsev emphasized that he hopes the record-shattering heat will motivate policymakers and the general public to take action to prevent extreme climate events in the future.

Writing for the Financial Times, Prof. Robert Pindyck makes the case that households, private businesses and governments must "invest in adaptation to climate change, in order to counter its possible impact.” Pindyck writes, “Now is the time to put more effort into efficient CO₂ emission reduction, and invest in adaptation to limit the impacts of climate change.”

Researchers from MIT and elsewhere have found that new building codes put in place to combat climate change could impact home affordability in the greater Boston area, reports Paula Ebben for CBS Boston, “If widely adopted, [the codes] could add up to $23,000 to the cost of an average home, leaving an additional 33,000 Massachusetts residents priced out of the market,” writes Ebben.

Randolph Kirchain and Hessam AzariJafari of the MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub speak with Washington Post reporter Sharon Osaka about the importance of reducing the emissions produced during the cement manufacturing process. Kirchain noted there is a way to cut carbon emissions significantly and ensure safety at the same time. “The things that concrete goes into are things that we need to last,” he said.

A study from MIT and elsewhere has found that a new building code in Massachusetts designed to promote “net zero” development, “would increase construction costs and potentially worsen the state’s housing crisis,” reports Greg Ryan for NBC Boston.

Prof. Yet-Ming Chiang co-founded Sublime Systems, a company that has developed a new method for producing cement that is powered by electrochemistry instead of fossil fuel-powered heat, reports Catherine Clifford for CNBC. “I believe climate change has pushed all of us into an extremely fertile, creative period that will be looked back on as a true renaissance,” says Chiang. “After all, we're trying to re-invent the technological tools of the industrial revolution. There's no shortage of great problems to work on!  And time is short.”

MIT researchers have developed a new compact, lightweight design for a 1-megawatt electrical motor that “could open the door to electrifying much larger aircraft,” reports Ed Gent for IEEE Spectrum. “The majority of CO₂ is produced by twin and single-aisle aircraft which require large amounts of power and onboard energy, thus megawatt-class electrical machines are needed to power commercial airliners,” says Prof. Zoltán Spakovszky. “Realizing such machines at 1 MW is a key stepping stone to larger machines and power levels.”

Sublime Systems, an MIT startup, is on a mission to manufacture emissions-free cement, writes David Abel for The Boston Globe. “If we’re successful, this could be a way of making cement for millennia to come,” said Leah Ellis, chief executive of Sublime Systems. “What we’ve found is that we can bring tools from our technical training to these problems, and use them in new and creative ways,” said Prof. Yet-Ming Chiang, co-founder of Sublime Systems. “I believe it’s a very fertile time for this kind of reinvention.”

Darby Dunn ’08 speaks with CNBC reporter Catherine Clifford about her journey from building rockets for SpaceX to working on making fusion energy a reality at Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS). “For me, it really came down to wanting to use my energy to clean up the planet instead of get off it,” says Dunn. “So that was the huge shift for me to come to CFS.”