Climate

Researchers from MIT have developed a new satellite observation technique that can help gauge the strength of ancient rivers on Mars and active liquid methane rivers on Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, reports Jamie Carter for Forbes. “What’s exciting about Titan is that it’s active, and on Mars, it gives us a time machine, to take the rivers that are dead now and get a sense of what they were like when they were actively flowing,” says Prof. Taylor Perron. “With this technique, we have a method to make real predictions for a place where we won’t get more data for a long time.”

Using a new satellite observation technique, researchers from MIT and elsewhere have determined the flow of dried-up rivers on Mars and currently active liquid methane rivers on Titan, Saturn’s largest moon. “Both kinds are of scientific interest because they could reveal the role rivers play in shaping the worlds’ environments,” reports Isaac Schultz for Gizmodo.

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.”

MIT researchers have developed a low-cost air quality sensor that can be 3-D printed using open-source instructions and used by people around the world, reports Kristin Toussaint for Fast Company. “The reason we started this project was because we wanted to democratize environmental data,” explains research scientist Simone Mora. “We’re not just opening the data we’ve collected so far, but we hope to funnel a huge development in terms of sensors deployed in the streets, and in turn [make] the data collected available to everyone.”

Visiting scientist Judah Cohen speaks with Boston.com reporter Eli Curwin about how a combination of more accurate data collection, precise weather models, and accessible forecast predictions make it unlikely that Massachusetts residents would be surprised again by a storm like the infamous Blizzard of ‘78. “The satellites, the ships, the weather stations, weather balloons used to integrate and assimilate all that data are much better than they used to be,” says Cohen.

Forbes reporter Jeff McMahon spotlights visiting scientist Judah Cohen for his research examining the connection between Arctic snow cover and sea ice to cold air intrusions in the United States during the month of February. “December has certainly been warming if you look at the U.S.,” sayscCohen. But “February, going back to 1979—so quite a few years now—we're actually seeing in the center of the U.S. a very distinctive cooling trend.”

Boston Globe reporter Scott Kirsner spotlights Boston as a potential leader in climate technology for their “incubator spaces like Greentown Labs in Somerville and The Engine in Cambridge.”

Prof. Steven Barrett speaks with New York Times reporter Paige McClanahan about the pressing need to make air travel more sustainable and his research exploring the impact of contrails on the planet’s temperature. “Eliminating contrails is quite a big lever on mitigating the climate impact of aviation,” said Barrett.

A new study by MIT scientists finds that Earth can self-regulate its temperature thanks to a stabilizing feedback mechanism that works over hundreds of thousands of years, reports Troy Farah for Salon. “The finding has big implications for our understanding of the past, but also how global heating is shaping the future of our home world,” writes Farah. “It even helps us better understand the evolution of planetary temperatures that can make the search for alien-inhabited exoplanets more fruitful.”

MIT and Delta airlines are developing a plan to eliminate persistent contrails, reports Susan Tran for NBC Boston 10. “A possible solution here is to get rid of these clouds flying at different altitudes,” says Tran. “They [researchers] say that up to 90 percent of all contrails could be avoided by flying at different heights.”

Researchers at MIT’s Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics and Delta Air Lines are working together to find new ways to eliminate persistent contrails, the white clouds that trail behind airplanes, using an algorithm that predicts altitudes and locations where contrails are likely to form, reports Omose Ighodaro for Bloomberg. “The joint research group has already completed more than 40 testing flights and has plans for live experiment flights and simulations,” writes Ighodaro.

Prof. Kerry Emanuel discusses the impact climate change has on hurricanes, reports Robinson Meyer for The Atlantic. “First of all, you can have more intense hurricanes in a warmer climate. That finding goes back well over 30 years now,” says Emanuel. “For that reason we expect to see more of the highest-category storms—the Cat 3s, Cat 4s, Cat 5s, more of the Ian-style storms.”

Prof. Kerry Emanuel speaks with Newsweek reporter Pandora Dewan about Hurricane Ian and its correlation to climate change, reports Pandora Dewan for Newsweek. “What worries people in my profession is the confluence of two trends," says Emanuel. "One is demographic, one is nature. The number of people exposed to hurricanes has tripled since 1970 [as] people are moving in droves to hurricane-prone regions. Then the climate is changing, and that is demonstrably increasing the incidence of high-end storms like Ian."

Prof. Tanja Bosak speaks with Science reporter Eric Hand about how scientists plan to study rock samples from Mars for clues as to whether the planet once had a magnetic field and for signs of ancient life, such as the tough lipid molecules that can form cell walls. “You hope for an outline of a cell,” she says. “You will never find peptides and proteins, but lipids can persist.”

Siblings Gia Schneider ‘99 and Abe Schneider SM ‘03 co-founded Natel, a company dedicated to developing sustainable, climate-resilient hydropower, reports Amy Gunia for TIME. “The siblings hope that what they’re doing can help demonstrate a more sustainable approach to renewable energy – proving that companies shouldn’t have to choose between what’s good for the environment and what works economically,” writes Gunia.