Recent Videos tagged 'Earth and atmospheric sciences' on MIT Video

Cooking up rocks in MIT's Experimental Petrology Lab

Wed, 15 May 2013 07:11:43 GMT

Tim Grove's research focus is on the processes that have led to the chemical differentiation of the crust and mantle of the Earth and on the processes of formation and evolution of the interiors of other planets, including the moon, Mars, Mercury and meteorite parent bodies.

Head in the Clouds

Wed, 15 May 2013 07:11:33 GMT

Sarvesh Garimella is a graduate student interested in using laboratory studies and models to understand how natural and anthropogenic aerosols affect the formation and persistence of ice and mixed-phase clouds in the atmosphere and ultimately the climate system.

Video by Helen Hill, MIT

Atmosphere, Ocean and Climate Dynamics - GFD0: Rotation stiffens fluids

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 07:08:49 GMT

Atmosphere, Ocean and Climate Dynamics - GFD0: Rotation stiffens fluids

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 07:08:49 GMT

Atmosphere, Ocean and Climate Dynamics - GFD0: Rotation stiffens fluids

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 07:08:49 GMT

Atmosphere, Ocean and Climate Dynamics - GFDVII: Taylor columns

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 07:08:48 GMT

Atmosphere, Ocean and Climate Dynamics - GFDVIII: Thermal wind and Hadley circulation

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 07:08:48 GMT

Atmosphere, Ocean and Climate Dynamics - GFDX: Ekman layers

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 07:08:48 GMT

Atmosphere, Ocean and Climate Dynamics - GFDXII: Ekman pumping and suction

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 07:08:48 GMT

Atmosphere, Ocean and Climate Dynamics - GFDII: Convection

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 07:08:47 GMT

Atmosphere, Ocean and Climate Dynamics - GFDIII: Radial inflow

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 07:08:47 GMT

Atmosphere, Ocean and Climate Dynamics - GFDIX: Slope of a frontal surface

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 07:08:47 GMT

Atmosphere, Ocean and Climate Dynamics - GFDV: Inertial circles

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 07:08:47 GMT

Atmosphere, Ocean and Climate Dynamics - GFDXI: Atmospheric general circulation

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 07:08:47 GMT

Atmosphere, Ocean and Climate Dynamics - GFDXIII: Ocean gyres

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 07:08:46 GMT

Atmosphere, Ocean and Climate Dynamics - GFDXIV: Thermohaline circulation

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 07:08:46 GMT

Under Pressure

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 21:31:20 GMT

In this video we replicate Pascal's famous experiment that showed atmospheric pressure was due to the column of the weight of the air above.

Cumulus, cirrus, stratus: what clouds say about climate change

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 08:05:22 GMT

What happens when particles in the atmosphere, especially manufactured ones, interact with water vapor and temperature to form clouds in a changing climate?

Earth's Tilt 2: Land of the Midnight Sun

Tue, 04 Dec 2012 08:05:38 GMT

How can you tell when to go to bed when the sun never sets?

Earth's Tilt Part 2

Tue, 04 Dec 2012 08:05:37 GMT

uploaded 11/13/12

Understanding Arctic Sea Ice

Wed, 21 Nov 2012 14:56:25 GMT

Read more about Principal Research Scientist Patrick Heimbach's work in MIT's Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at MIT News, the MITgcm website, and the website for NASA's ECCO2.

About the animation: The simulation was conducted with the MIT coupled ocean-sea ice general circulation model, or in short, MITgcm. The configuration was constructed as part of the Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean Phase II, or ECCO2 project. It was run by project partners Gunnar Spreen and Dimitris Menemenlis at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory on NASA's supercomputer "Pleiades" at the Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California. Tim Sandstrom at NASA's Advanced Supercomputing Division performed the visualization of the simulations.

Image Credits:
Earth System Research Laboratory, NOAA, http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/csd/projects/arcpac/
European Space Agency (ESA) CryoSat Mission, http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Cryosat/
National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA) Earth Observatory, http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (NASA/GSFC), http://www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/sets/
National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
Alfred-Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), http://www.awi.de/

Deciphering the Dariv

Wed, 14 Nov 2012 08:05:47 GMT

Claire Bucholz, a Ph.D. candidate in the MIT-WHOI Joint Program, studies rocks in an ancient subduction zone now lying in the heart of land-locked Mongolia. In particular, she has spent the last two summers, building an understanding of a unique island arc-related alkaline fractionation sequence in the remote Dariv Mountain Range.

As part of a broader interest in chemical mass transfer between various reservoirs in the earth, a current focus is the chemical recycling processes that occur in subduction zones and the origin and evolution of the continental crust. Combining fieldwork, petrology, major & trace element geochemistry, geochronology, experimental petrology, and modeling, Claire's research exemplifies the extremely multi-disciplinary nature of research in this area as well as the unique fieldwork opportunities it provides.

In Summer 2012 Claire was accompanied by undergraduate Ben Thompson as part of a UROP project. To enquire about similar UROP opportunities years in the 2013 field season, email Oliver Jagoutz (jagoutz@mit.edu).

Video by Helen Hill

Measuring Martian Snowflakes

Wed, 14 Nov 2012 08:05:47 GMT

Renyu Hu, a graduate student in the Program in Atmospheres, Oceans and Climate in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences at MIT, is interested in a range of planetary science problems from characterizing terrestrial exoplanet atmospheres and surfaces to analyzing Mars orbiter data.

In this video Renyu describes his work studying polar processes on Mars. In a 2012 study co-authored with EAPS Professors Kerri Cahoy and Maria Zuber, Mars atmospheric CO2 condensation above the north and south poles as revealed by radio occultation, climate sounder, and laser ranging observations, the team provide the first observational constraints on the particle size of CO₂ snow on the red planet.

You can read more about this work in this MIT News article Martian Snowflakes.

Originally from China, Renyu has a Diplome d'Ingenieur from Ecole Centrale Paris, France and a Masters in Astrophysics from Tsinghua University, China. Renyu's thesis advisor is Sara Seager.

Video by Helen Hill

Tracking Creeping Plates from Space

Tue, 13 Nov 2012 21:30:12 GMT

Mike Floyd, a postdoc in the Department of Earth, Atmopheric, and Planetary Sciences at MIT, uses GPS to track the vanishingly slow, yet inexorable movement of the tectonic plates underlying the Caucasus. In this video he shares work he and co-workers recently published showing deformation caused by colliding tectonic plates may threaten the Azerbaijani capital, and oil supplies to Europe.

Read more about efforts to monitor and understand the building seismic strain under Azerbaijan at MIT News

Video by Helen Hill

Where Biology and Geology Meet

Tue, 13 Nov 2012 21:30:12 GMT

Geobiologist, and Hayes Career Dev. Assoc. Professor in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Tanja Bosak studies microbial fossils to understand the parallel evolution of life and the environment. She also undertakes laboratory experiments on modern microbes to test how they shape rocks and why microbes produce unique polycyclic lipid compounds that can persist in sediments for billions of years.

In this video interview she describes how her research contributes to unravelling the co-evolution of life and the environment on early Earth.

Professor Bosak, who received her Ph.D. in 2004 from CalTech, joined the EAPS faculty in 2007.

Video by Helen Hill

The Ground Beneath Her Feet

Wed, 07 Nov 2012 08:10:17 GMT

Alison Malcolm is an Assistant Professor of Geophysics in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences at MIT.

Transit Time Lapse

Fri, 12 Oct 2012 07:05:45 GMT

The rare coincidence in the orbit of the moon and sun was captured by Mike Krawczynski PhD '11.

Fast Processes

Fri, 21 Sep 2012 17:30:14 GMT

The Earth is over 4 billion years old, but the surface is much younger. How is this possible? Volcanoes, landslides and earthquakes.

License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
More information at http://k12videos.mit.edu/terms-conditions

The layers of the Earth

Fri, 21 Sep 2012 17:30:13 GMT

The Earth is approximately 4,000 miles from the center to its surface, but what makes up those miles of earth? Let's take a journey inside.

The World's Chemistry in Our Hands: Global Environmental Challenges Past and Future

Tue, 18 Sep 2012 07:09:55 GMT

Professor Susan Solomon
Ellen Swallow Richards Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry and Climate Science at MIT

Dean of Science's Colloquium: “The World’s Chemistry in Our Hands: Global Environmental Challenges Past and Future”

September 13, 2012

Humans have faced a series of global environmental chemistry challenges in the past half-century, including ozone depletion, the use of lead products, and more. In this colloquium, Professor Solomon will explore how combinations of science, public policy, and citizen engagement can lead to solutions; she will also probe how the lessons learned can inform key challenges of the 21st century, especially climate change.

Solomon has led two expeditions to Antarctica and had a glacier named after her. She is the author of several books and influential scientific papers in climate science, and has been honored with numerous prestigious awards, including the 1999 National Medal of Science (the highest scientific honor in the US) and the Grande Medaille (the highest award of the French Academy of Sciences). A member of the National Academy of Sciences, the French Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society, and the Acadameia Europaea, Solomon also co-led the science assessment of the most recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. Time Magazine named Solomon as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2008.

Outside her core-scientific interests, Susan is the author of The Coldest March, a popular book on Antarctic history which stemmed from her frequent Antarctic sojourns during the late 80's and early 90's. Her book was selected among '2001 Books of the Year' lists of The New York Times, The Economist (UK), and The Independent (UK).

The Dean's colloquium series was established to recognize and celebrate scientists who have chosen innovative, non-traditional career paths and been unusually successful. Past speakers have included Jim Simons of Renaissance Technologies and Edward Scolnick, former President of Merck Research Laboratories.

Modeling the Arctic Ocean - MITgcm on Ice

Fri, 03 Aug 2012 20:30:11 GMT

The Arctic Ocean halocline, a layer of high vertical salinity gradient and near-freezing temperature, insulates the surface sea-ice from heat stored in Atlantic water with a significant impact on sea-ice growth and melt. An understanding of its role in the general circulation is therefore of great value to an understanding of ocean - sea-ice coupling in the region.

In this video interview, polar researcher An Nguyen presents the results of a recently published ocean and sea-ice modeling study of the Chukchi Sea she co-authored with researchers at JPL.

You can find out more about An Nguyen, this project, and the MIT General Circulation Model, or MITgcm at http://mitgcm.org/2012/07/27/mitgcm-on-ice.

Video by Helen Hill

Mapping the Moon's Shackleton Crater

Wed, 20 Jun 2012 17:30:10 GMT

Scientists from MIT, Brown University, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and other institutions have mapped the moon's Shackleton crater with unprecedented detail, and found possible evidence for small amounts of ice on the crater's floor.

Struck by Asteroids

Fri, 01 Jun 2012 07:03:50 GMT

Francesca DeMeo has a passion for asteroids. This former EAPS undergraduate, back at MIT after a stint at grad school in Paris, is currently a postdoc in Rick Binzel's Group. In this interview, Francesca shares her excitement and fascination about these abundant and varied bodies. Video credit: Helen Hill

The SQUID, the planetary scientist and a lot of little bits of moon rock

Fri, 01 Jun 2012 07:03:50 GMT

Benjamin Weiss is conducting laboratory magnetic studies on rocks from Mars, the Moon, and Earth to understand the evolution of planets, magnetism, and life. He is using SQUID microscopy, a new technique several orders of magnitude more sensitive than standard SQUID moment magnetometry that makes high-resolution magnetic maps of room temperature samples.

His research team is broadly interested in the role of magnetic fields on planets in the early solar system. This area of research has all sorts of interesting implications--from the climatic history of Mars to the formation of planets.

In this interview he talks about his research and how he originally got interested in the field of paleomagnetism.

Video credit: Helen Hill

Cambridge Science Festival - What's Your Question? - Rivers of Ice

Thu, 31 May 2012 17:30:11 GMT

From the high Himalayas to the poles, the world’s glaciers are melting. What does this mean for your community and our shared Earth? David Breashears presents his stunning new images of the Himalayan glaciers to mark the MIT Museum’s opening of its special exhibition by GlacierWorks: Rivers of Ice: Vanishing Glaciers of the Greater Himalaya.

Along with David Breashears, the symposium brings together scientists and community members to debate your questions about our climate, environment, water supply and much more.

Speakers:
Graham Cogley, Professor of Geography, Trent University
Orville Schell, Arthur Ross Director, Center on U.S.-China Relations, Asia Society
Susan Solomon, Professor, Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Ellen Swallow Richards Chair, MIT
James Wescoat, Aga Khan Professor, Department of Architecture, MIT
Moderated by: Marco Werman, host of PRI's The World

Part of the Cambridge Science Festival: http://www.cambridgesciencefestival.org/2012Festival/2012ScheduleofEvents/RiversofIce.aspx

Tammy Thompson on "Evaluating Energy Policy: Quantifying Air Pollution and Health Co-Benefits"

Fri, 25 May 2012 07:03:20 GMT

Researcher Tammy Thompson attended the American Geophysical Union's Science Policy Conference this month. In this video, Thompson explains the research she did that the conference highlighted.

To view Thompson's poster from the conference, click here.

In her research, Thompson, along with researchers Noelle Selin and Sebastian Rausch, evaluated the co-benefits of potential US energy policy options with respect to regional ozone and particulate matter concentrations and air pollution-related health and economic impacts - focusing specifically on a US-wide Clean Energy Standard. They also evaluated a market-based carbon policy motivated by recently-proposed cap and trade policies. The researchers used a modeling framework linking three tools that each model one aspect of the interplay between the U.S. economy, regional air quality, and human health. In this way, they enforced consistency in assumptions and allowed for critical feedbacks to be represented when assessing the co-benefits and distributional implications of energy policies affecting air quality. The linked models included: the MIT-developed United States Regional Energy Policy (USREP) economic model, extensively used for energy and natural resource policy analysis; the Comprehensive Air Quality Model with Extensions (CAMx); and MIT-developed health impact software. Thompson and the other researchers assessed the changes in economic variables such as GDP, energy use, sectoral output and consumption due to energy policy, as well as emissions of greenhouse gases and pollutant precursors. Future scenarios of ozone and PM2.5 (particulate matter with a diameter < 2.5 µm) were then modeled using CAMx for the continental U.S. to determine the impact on ground level pollution and the potential for human exposure in major urban areas in the US. Results evaluating the Clean Energy Standard indicated this policy would lead to nationwide seasonally averaged decreases in eight hour averaged ozone of up to two parts per billion with localized maximum decreases an order of magnitude larger. Fine sulfate particulate would also decrease by two to three µg/m3 across the US with localized decreases an order of magnitude larger. The researchers estimated mortalities and morbidities associated with ozone and particulate matter, and quantified the economic impact of these damages. Results were compared with the cost of climate policies.

Stay tuned to read the full report.

When Life's a Plastic Beach - Adventures in Geomorphology

Fri, 25 May 2012 07:03:20 GMT

Geomorphologist Taylor Perron loves figuring out how landscapes tick. His group is particularly intersted in how patterns emerge in landscapes (from river networks to ripples in sand at the shoreline), how climate, and especially rainfall and sunlight, influence landscape, and the landscapes that occur on other planets and moons and how they differ from what is seen on Earth.

In this video Taylor shares two research projects:

"Landscapes on the Move" focuses on Taylor's work modeling river valley evolution. Speeding up the process from hundreds of thousands of years to just a few minutes, Taylor reveals what a dynamic process the evolution of topography is.

In "Ripples in Rocks - A Day at the Plastic Beach" Taylor compares time-lapse video from a laboratory wave-tank with computer animations in an exploration of how ripple structures get set into rock, and the geometries they exhibit.

Read more about Taylor's work to predict the speed of valley spread in the MIT News article The hills are evolving .

Video credit: Helen Hill

At the intersection of biology and physics in the ocean

Fri, 18 May 2012 20:30:11 GMT

Mick Follows is a Senior Research Scientist in the Program in Atmospheres, Oceans and Climate, part of the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, at MIT. Together with the other members of the Marine Biogeochemical Modeling group (researchers Stephanie Dutkiewicz, and Oliver Jahn, postdocs Sergio Vallina, and Anne-Willem Omta, and graduate students Sophie Clayton, Chris Kempes, Emily Zakum and Keisuke Inomura) he is trying to understand the global carbon cycle and global plankton populations using a combination of simple models, data analysis and numerical simulations of the ocean.

A major focus of the group’s current work is The Darwin Project: An interdisciplinary, interdeparmental effort at MIT to model marine ecosystems and understand how they are regulated by, and feedback upon, the environment.

In this video, which grew out of a Plenary Lecture at the Spring 2012, American Geophysical Union, Ocean Sciences meeting in Salt Lake City,UT, "Modeling Marine Microbes: From Molecules to Ecosystems", Mick talks about the past, present and future of marine ecosystem modeling. In particular he explains how his group uses numerical simulations to understand the organization of plankton populations and how advances in cell biology and microbiology might inform future models.

Acknowledgements: Thanks to the ECCO2 and Darwin Project teams for their contributions to this work. Particular thanks goes to Oliver Jahn for creating the animations used in this video.

Video credit: Helen Hill

EAPS in Brief: Atmospheric Chemist Colette Heald

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 07:03:18 GMT

Atmospheric chemist Professor Colette Heald joined MIT this spring as an Assistant Professor with a joint appointment in EAPS and Civil and Environmental Engineering.

She received her BS in Engineering Physcs from Queen's Universityin Kingston, Ontario (she is originally Canadian), in 2000, and a PhD (2005) in Earth and Planetary Science from Harvard where she worked with Professor Daniel J. Jacob on the use of satellite observations of atmospheric composition to quantify the sources and intercontinental export of pollutants. Most recently, after spending two years at the University California Berkeley as a NOAA Climate and Global Change Postdoctoral Fellow where she focused on the sources and climate sensitivity of organic aerosols, Heald was an assistant professor in the Atmospheric Science Department at Colorado State.

Heald is interested in global atmospheric composition and chemistry, and interactions of these with the biosphere and climate system,including the study of both particles and gases in the troposphere, their sources, sinks, transformations, long range transport and environmental impacts. Using observations of the atmosphere at all scales: from ground stations, aircraft campaigns and satellite sensors with global models of chemistry and climate, she works at the intersection of modeling and observational analysis, with a strong emphasis on the integration of the two.

In this short video, Heald talks about the research questions she is working on and the techniques she uses.

You can read more about her work at Atmospheric Chemistry and Composition @ MIT

Stacy, 5th year master's student in EAPS

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 07:03:18 GMT

Stacy is a 5th year master's student in EAPS. Her thesis work focuses on assessing the economic value of seasonal hurricane forecasts based on insurance and reinsurance company interactions and information asymmetries. Her advisor is Kerry Emanuel.

In this interview she shares a little about life as an undergraduate major in EAPS.

Video by Helen Hill(2012)

Noah McLean - Adjusting the Rock Clock

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 07:03:19 GMT

Postdoc Noah McLean and scientists at the British Geological Survey have redefined a fundamental parameter used to calibrate Earth's history. In their recent Science paper, they report variations in minerals used to date major geological events.

Weather in a tank

Wed, 21 Mar 2012 07:03:36 GMT

Since 2001, Lodovica Illari and her colleague John Marshall have worked to make rotating fluid dynamics more intuitive for undergraduate students studying weather and climate, using a demonstration aptly named "Weather in a Tank."

Mysterious electron acceleration explained

Mon, 27 Feb 2012 15:30:06 GMT

A mysterious phenomenon detected by space probes has finally been explained, thanks to a massive computer simulation that was able to precisely align with details of the spacecraft observations.

Introducing Atmospheric Chemist Susan Solomon

Thu, 29 Dec 2011 16:22:19 GMT

Susan Solomon is widely recognized as a leader in the field of atmospheric science. She is well known for having pioneered the theory explaining why the ozone hole occurs in Antarctica, and obtaining some of the first chemical measurements that helped to establish the chlorofluorocarbons as its cause. She is also the author of several influential scientific papers in climate science, including one on the irreversibility of the climate change problem, and a popular book on Antarctic history, The Coldest March [selected among '2001 Books of the Year' lists of the New York Times, the Economist (UK), and the Independent (UK)]. Among her many awards, she received the 1999 National Medal of Science (the highest scientific honor in the US), as well as the Grande Medaille (the highest award of the French Academy of Sciences) and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the French Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society, and the Acadameia Europaea. Susan has been a scientist at NOAA since 1981, and an adjoint professor at the University of Colorado in Boulder since 1982. She also co-led Working Group I of the most recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize and is the author of several books. Time magazine named Solomon as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2008.

In this interview she talks about her work and some of the things she is looking forward to at MIT as she joins the faculty in January 2012.

A Brit, his computer and prepping for a greenhouse whodunnit

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 15:46:51 GMT

Matt Rigby is a Research Scientist in the Center for Global Change Science. An atmospheric chemist by training, his particular interest is in determining the sources and sinks of greenhouse gases. To determine their sources and sinks, Rigby uses measurements of the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere together with computer models (a lot like the models used to produce weather forecasts) to work backwards from where a gas is observed to where it must have come from. Doing this he can then seek to work out what the sources are or what the destruction rates for the various gases are.

Profile: EAPS Graduate Student Yodit Tewelde

Mon, 21 Nov 2011 17:50:42 GMT

Yodit Tewelde is a graduate student in the Planetary Science Program in EAPS. Childhood planetarium visits and a love of reading science fiction novels, meant Yodit always suspected space or space exploration was somewhere in a her future. In High School, while she was trying to decide whether to go into science or engineering, she became involved in MITES (the Minority Introduction to Engineering and Science program, http://web.mit.edu/mites), coming to MIT for a summer to find out what life at MIT was like. There she fell in love with the engineering class and decided to come to AeroAstro to do her undergrad. It was following a UROP (Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program, http://web.mit.edu/urop) in EAPS that she decided to switch back towards science, returning to EAPS for grad. school. In this interview, Yodit recounts the research she has been doing during the first 2 years of her Ph.D. studies. The first project concerns mapping the "Ghost Craters of Mars". The northern lowlands of Mars, which make up about a third of its surface, are 4 to 5 kms lower than the southern highlands and are thought to have been created by a giant impact. Within that impact however there are numerous smaller "ghost craters" or craters that, over time, have become filled in. Yodit's work involves trying to figure out the volume of fill and what it is made out of, enabling her to infer what the surface might have looked like in the past: to learn about such things as ancient shorelines and the evolution of Mars as a whole. The second project, with EAPS assistant professor Taylor Perron, concerns Titan (the 6th moon of Saturn) chosen, as Yodit explains, because, other than Earth, it is the only place we know of in our Solar System with a dense nitrogen atmosphere. It is also the only place (other than Earth) within the solar system currently known to hold liquid on its surface, although on Titan that liquid is methane not water and instead of cutting through rock like it does on Earth, on Titan the liquid methane cuts through water ice. Yodit studies surface drainage patterns created in such an environment, comparing them with similar patterns on Earth, to provide new insights into surface conditions on Titan.

A Passion for Life on Ice

Fri, 14 Oct 2011 17:44:50 GMT

Alison Criscitiello is a fourth year Marine Geology and Geophysics student in the MIT-WHOI Joint Program in EAPS. Her principal interest is in glaciology, in particular validating a potential proxy for Antarctic sea-ice extent based on ice-core composition. Each winter for the past 2 years Alison has travelled to Antarctica to drill. In this interview Alison describes her work and her passion for life on ice. Alison is a 2010 DOE Graduate Fellow. Based at Woods Hole, her advisor is Dr. Sarah Das.

Michael Sori - EAPS graduate student

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 21:56:14 GMT

Graduate student Mike Sori studies planetary science. His particular research interest is understanding the nature and variations in cratering of Earth's moon. Using high-resolution altimeter data from the Lunar Reconaisance Orbiter to explore geographical differences in crater characterisics, Sori is seeking to better understand the structure and evolution of the moon in its own right and as a proxy for other rocky bodies in the inner Solar System and beyond. Mike joined EAPS in 2009 after completing his undergraduate studies in Physics and Math at Duke University. His advisor is Maria Zuber.

Physical Sciences and Engineering

Mon, 09 May 2011 14:35:15 GMT

MIT150 Symposium
Computation and the Transformation of Practically Everything Symposium

Chair
Srinivas Devadas - Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, MIT

Speakers
Charles M. Vest - President, Emeritus, MIT and President, National Academy of Engineering
Maria Zuber - E. A. Griswold Professor of Geophysics and Head of the Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, MIT

Outside the Box: Crossing Disciplines at MIT

Thu, 03 Mar 2011 22:36:41 GMT

Outside the Box: Crossing Disciplines at MIT profiles three prominent interdisciplinary researchers at MIT. Profiles include Maria Zuber, a geophysicist renowned for her research on planetary surfaces; Vladimir Bulovi?, an electrical engineer developing lightweight solar cells; and Paula Hammond, a materials scientist creating new nanomaterials for cancer treatment. Throughout this 16-minute documentary, Outside the Box shows how MIT's collaborative problem-solving culture often leads scientists to seek answers and ideas outside their own discipline.

A Material to Capture Carbon Dioxide

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 05:00:00 GMT

Allen Wright, senior staff associate at Columbia University, demonstrates a material that captures carbon dioxide from the air, which could be used to reduce atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations.

MIT students send a balloon to near space for $150

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:32:18 GMT

Two students sent a camera-dangling balloon to near space and took stunning photography of Earth: all for $150.

Hills and Valleys

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 14:43:22 GMT

Computer model developed by Taylor Perron and colleagues shows how evenly-spaced ridges and valleys form over time as a result of erosion and the slumping of soil.

MITEI Earth Day Colloquium - James McCarthy

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 20:55:49 GMT

This colloquium was given in celebration of Earth Day on April 22, 2009.

What Does Current Scientific Research Have to Say About the Present and Future Risks Associated with Hurricanes?

Mon, 31 Oct 2005 05:00:00 GMT

Kerry Emanuel, '76, PhD '78, Professor of Atmospheric Science

Description: As the costs of Hurricane Katrina continue to spiral higher — to date, $125 billion in damages and 1,200 deaths — there's keen interest in perfecting the science of hurricane forecasting. The insurance industry in particular has a big stake in learning where and how the next big one is likely to hit. The problem is that traditional methods of statistical analysis, relying on previous landfalling storms, only go so far in generating useful risk assessments. "We have a bad time predicting in real time when and where hurricanes will develop," says Emanuel. "It's not even easy to state over a long period of time what the probability is."

Emanuel is refining risk assessment by adding physics to the mix. His laptop-run program takes into account not only a century's worth of actual storms, but also the temperature at the ocean's surface, from which a hurricane derives much of its energy, as well as air currents, to generate tens of thousands of potential hurricane tracks. For instance, only 29 hurricanes have landed within 100 kilometers of Miami in the past century — relatively little data to help predict potential future damage. Emanuel can conjure up thousands of possible storms evolving in the Atlantic and pounding that city with winds of a given intensity. The real trick, says Emanuel, will involve factoring in climate change. He's found a correlation between sea surface temperature and wind speed that poses serious consequences for a world that's rapidly heating up, with "a greatly increased hurricane destructive potential," says Emanuel. However, from a "U.S.-centric point of view, on a 50-year timescale, this probably doesn't mean much at all." The likelihood of another superstorm like Katrina or Rita hitting our coast will be a matter of bad luck. But gazing beyond a 50-year horizon, "then you have to worry about global trends," he says.

About the Speaker(s): Kerry Emanuel has been on the faculty of MIT since 1981. He was previously at the University of California, Los Angeles. His research focuses on tropical meteorology and climate, with a specialty in hurricane physics. His interests also include cumulus convection, and advanced methods of sampling the atmosphere in aid of numerical weather prediction. He is the author or co-author of more than 100 peer-reviewed scientific papers, and two books, including Divine Wind: The History and Science of Hurricanes, (2005, Oxford University Press).

Emanuel received his SB in Earth and Planetary Sciences from MIT, and earned a PhD in Meteorology from MIT in 1978.

Host(s): Office of the President