Climate

Senior Research Scientist C. Adam Schlosser, deputy director of the MIT Center for Sustainability Science and Strategy, speaks with Joshua Miller of The Boston Globe’s Camberville & Beyond newsletter about weather, climate and how warming temperatures could impact the Northeastern US. Schlosser explains that: “warmer air can carry more moisture, more vapor. So, imagine again a future for the Northeast where everything is risen by a few degrees. It's not just the daytime temperatures, but the nighttime temperatures. The amount of vapor in the air has a big impact on nighttime temperatures, and on hot, humid nights, your body's ability to cool is diminished.” 

Prof. Raymond Pierrehumbert and his colleagues have discovered an exoplanet orbiting a star 34 light-years from Earth that is "covered with a perpetual ocean of magma and ​enveloped by a noxious and fiercely hot sulfur-rich atmosphere," reports Will Dunham for Reuters. "The era of exoplanet discovery ⁠keeps showing us ​new kinds of worlds, indeed 'strange new worlds,' generally stranger than anything in 'Star Trek,'" says Pierrehumbert. “This offers all sorts of exciting opportunities to put together fundamental physics in very novel ways."

Prof. Christopher Knittel speaks with New York Times reporter Emmett Lindner about how the conflict with Iran has influenced gas prices in the United States. “When there’s a supply disruption in the Middle East, that raises prices for every barrel of oil in the world,” explains Knittel. “Those price increases then trickle down to products that use oil, gasoline being the most relevant one.”

Prof. Christopher Knittel speaks with Bloomberg reporter Stacey Vanek Smith about increased gas prices. “Gas is something we tend to buy on a weekly basis,” says Knittel. “But also, we see the price hundreds of times a day. Even if you’re not buying it, you see the price, so the salience of gas prices is like no other.” 

Research Scientist Judah Cohen speaks with USA Today reporter Doyle Rice about how changes in the polar vortex will impact March weather across the United States. “I would expect a milder period in the eastern US until close to the spring equinox," says Cohen. "Then I think eventually colder weather arrives to the eastern U.S. related to the polar vortex split in late March or early April that could hang around for a while."

Research scientist Judah Cohen served as a panelist for the Boston Globe’s “The Reshaping of New England’s Seasons: What’s Happening to Our Weather?” event, reports Ken Mahan for The Boston Globe. Cohen and his fellow panelists discussed New England weather, sharing insights and answering questions from community members. 

USA Today reporter Dinah Voyles Pulver spotlights Research Scientist Judah Cohen’s research studying how weather systems and climate patterns are related to the increase in Arctic blasts and deep freezes this winter. 

Research Scientist Judah Cohen speaks with New York Times reporter Eric Niiler about his research studying “how global warming might also be causing colder winters in the eastern United States.” Cohen says “It’s weird what’s going on now in the stratosphere. These stretching events happen every winter, but just how the pattern is stuck is really remarkable.” 

Research Scientist Judah Cohen speaks with Boston Globe reporter Ken Mahan about how a disrupted polar vortex (PV) could impact weather in the United States in the coming weeks. “The PV has been doing its best Mr. Fantastic impression, stretching and compressing continuously,” allowing frigid air to escape southward, Cohen explains. “If we (New England) do receive colder weather, but not quite the cold we experienced in late January, again from this larger PV disruption, it will be either late February and early March.”  

Research Scientist Judah Cohen speaks with USA Today reporter Doyle Rice about how the polar vortex and cold Siberian air could impact weather across the U.S. in February. Cohen noted that some of the cold weather being felt on the East Coast of the U.S. is "coming from Siberia and that is contributing to the extremity of the cold since Siberia is the source of the coldest air of the Northern Hemisphere in winter.”

Writing for The Conversation, Research Scientist Judah Cohen and Mathew Barlow of UMass Lowell examine how the polar vortex and moisture from a warm Gulf of Mexico created a monster winter storm that brought freezing rain, sleet and snow to large parts of the U.S. “Some research suggests that even in a warming environment, cold events, while occurring less frequently, may still remain relatively severe in some locations. One factor may be increasing disruptions to the stratospheric polar vortex, which appear to be linked to the rapid warming of the Arctic with climate change,” they write. “A warmer environment also increases the likelihood that precipitation that would have fallen as snow in previous winters may now be more likely to fall as sleet and freezing rain.”

Research Scientist Judah Cohen speaks with New York Times reporter Eric Niiler about his work linking increased severe winter weather in the United States to the stretching of the polar vortex. “We’ve shown in multiple papers now that the occurrence of the weak polar vortex is increasing in frequency, and the times when the polar vortex is strong or circular it’s happening less frequently,” says Cohen. 

In an interview with Gizmodo reporter Ellyn Lapointe, Research Scientist Judah Cohen highlights his work understanding the “complex relationship between global climate change, polar vortex behavior, and extreme mid-latitude weather.” Cohen explains that: “In our research, we have demonstrated that polar vortex stretching events have accelerated in the era of accelerated Arctic change. Climate change in general, but Arctic change in particular, is favorable for forcing these events. 

Research Scientist Judah Cohen explores the relationship between stretched polar vortex events and extreme weather in the United States, reports Andrew Freedman for CNN. “On the southern flanks of the polar vortex, over the US and Asia, and under that where that stretching is happening, there’s been an increase in severe winter weather,” says Cohen. “I’m not saying any one weather event is attributed to climate change, but I do think it loaded the dice here.”

Research Scientist Judah Cohen speaks with Associated Press reporter Caleigh Wells to explain how winter storm conditions can vary geographically. Farther south, “the snowflakes form, they fall and then they meet a warm layer, a layer above freezing, and they will melt,” explains Cohen. “But then there’s another layer near the surface that’s below freezing again, so they will refreeze before they hit the ground.”