In an article for The Washington Post, Beth Simone Noveck highlights RiskMap, an open-source platform developed by researchers from MIT’s Urban Risk Lab that allows users to gather and access information about disaster areas. Noveck writes that “RiskMap is a paradigmatic example of collective intelligence.”
Writing for The Guardian, Jeff Nesbit highlights Prof. Kerry Emanuel’s research showing that climate change is increasing the risk of extreme storms. Nesbit explains that Emanuel found that the risk for extreme storms in Tampa, Cairns, and the Persian Gulf increased by up to a factor of 14 over time as Earth’s climate changed.
MIT researchers have found that warmer temperatures caused by climate change could cause increases in fatal car crashes, food safety violations and even violent crime, writes Alan Neuhauser for U.S. News. The researchers hope that their findings will, “spur agencies to consider more closely how to help their workers – whether cops or health inspectors or elsewhere – cope with the heat.”
Researchers from MIT and Harvard studied how climate change could affect food inspections, traffic accidents and police stops, and found that rising temperatures could reduce safety, reports Susan Scutti for CNN. Research scientist Nick Obradovich explains that he hopes the findings can be used to “adapt or to fix things that might go wrong under a changing climate."
In an article for NBC News about how climate change could make life unsustainable in the countries along the Persian Gulf and North Africa, Charlene Gubash highlights an MIT study showing that temperatures there and in southwest Asia, “will exceed the threshold for human survival if nations fail to reign in emissions.”
An MIT study finds that rising temperatures due to climate change will make the North China Plain uninhabitable by the end of the century, reports Newsweek’s Brendan Cole. The area could experience heat and humidity that is “so strong that it is impossible for the human body to cool itself,” Cole explains.
Axios reporter Andrew Freedman examines a new study by researchers at MIT and the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology showing that China’s breadbasket, the North China Plain, could face severe heat waves. Big picture, writes Freedman, “such heat waves could both threaten lives and dampen economic output in the region, where 400 million people live.”
New research by Prof. Elfatih Eltahir finds that the North China Plain could face deadly heat waves by the end of the century unless measures are taken to curb carbon emissions, reports Damian Carrington for The Guardian. Eltahir found that there already has been a, “substantial increase in extreme heatwaves on the plain in the past 50 years.”
A new study by led by Prof. Elfatih Eltahir finds that climate change could cause the North China Plain, China’s most populous agricultural region, to face deadly heatwaves by 2100, reports Isabelle Gerretsen for the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “The intensity of those heatwaves means that survival of humans would be questionable,” says Eltahir.
CNN’s Sophie Tatum reports that six scientists from the U.S., including a senior research scientist with MIT’s Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, will join France’s new climate change initiative. The effort, notes Tatum, is meant to offer the international scientific community a chance to, “increase its efforts in battling climate change.”
Scientists at MIT and a private company are looking to "transform fusion from an expensive science experiment into a viable commercial energy source," reports Hannah Devlin for The Guardian. Devlin quotes Prof. Maria Zuber, MIT's Vice President for Research: "At the heart of today’s news is a big idea - a credible, viable plan to achieve net positive energy for fusion.”
Led by senior research scientist Rolland Pellenq, students in the School of Engineering developed a model “that links a city’s ‘texture’ to its night-time UHI (Urban Heat Index),” writes Laurie Winkless for Forbes. The team hopes their research will influence future urban development, especially in very hot or cold climates.
Senior research scientist Roland Pellenq and his colleagues have found that the layout of a city’s streets and buildings impacts the way it heats up. “Scientists found cities with more geometric, grid-like layouts, such as New York and Chicago, had a greater heat island effect than cities with less uniformity, like London and Boston,” writes Brooks Hays for UPI.
Researchers utilized weather data from the region between Texas, North Dakota, and Ohio to see if an increase in crop growth had an effect on area climate change. Kimberly Hickok writes for Science that there is "strong indication" that the regional changes in climate in the late 20th century can be attributed to “agriculture, and not changing sea surface temperature."
Prof. Susan Solomon has been named one of two recipients of this year’s Crafoord Prize for her contributions to climate research, according to the Associated Press. Solomon was honored for her, "fundamental contributions to understanding the role of atmospheric trace gases in Earth's climate system."