Climate Change

Understanding climate stories

In the latest episode of Penn Today’s “Understand This …” podcast series, Bethany Wiggin of the School of Arts & Sciences and Jennifer Pinto-Martin of the School of Nursing discuss climate stories, climate grief, and climate literacy.

Brandon Baker

Climate change and the problem with time

Episode 7 of “In These Times” brings together an oceanographer, a geophysicist, and a historian about the challenges to understanding the Earth’s 4.6 billion year history, and how our actions in the present impact a future we can only imagine.

From OMNIA

Preparing, and paying for, climate change-induced disasters

In the wake of a series of unusual and devastating December tornadoes, Carolyn Kousky of the Wharton Risk Management and Decision Processes Center tells Penn Today about strategies for resilience and recovery.

Katherine Unger Baillie

From corals to humans, a shared trigger for sperm to get in motion

Coral sperm require a specific pH to move, according to research from the School of Arts & Sciences, which identifies a signaling pathway that is shared by organisms including humans. The results inform how corals may fare with climate change.

Katherine Unger Baillie

Before geoengineering, some fundamental chemistry

Research led by Joseph S. Francisco of the School of Arts & Sciences examines the chemistry of a proposal to curb climate change’s effects—creating a sunshade in the upper atmosphere made of sulfuric acid—and finds that there’s more work to do to successfully pull off such a feat.

Katherine Unger Baillie

Penn at COP26: By the numbers

A look at who is representing the University at this global conference, what they’re focused on, and how it fits into the bigger picture of worldwide climate action.

Michele W. Berger

Cary Coglianese on the challenges facing the Paris Agreement

Cary Coglianese of the Law School discusses this year’s COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, where leaders are gathering to decide how best to tackle the climate crisis. He argues that the current strategy of the Paris agreement is inherently flawed.

From Penn Carey Law



Media Contact


In the News


The Washington Post

Forecast group predicts busiest hurricane season on record with 33 storms

A research team led by Michael Mann of the School of Arts & Sciences is predicting the upcoming Atlantic hurricane season will produce the most named storms on record, fueled by exceptionally warm ocean waters and an expected shift from El Niño to La Niña.

FULL STORY →



WHYY (Philadelphia)

My Climate Story: Philly students take science from abstract to personal

The “My Climate Story” project at the Environmental Humanities Department helps students and teachers learn about climate change’s impact in everyday backyards, with remarks from Bethany Wiggin. The idea is credited to María Villarreal, a College of Arts and Sciences second-year from Tampico, Mexico.

FULL STORY →



SciTechDaily

Satellite images capture extraordinary flooding in the United Arab Emirates

Michael Mann of the School of Arts & Sciences explains how three low-pressure systems formed a train of storms that battered the United Arab Emirates.

FULL STORY →



Associated Press

Here’s why experts don’t think cloud seeding played a role in Dubai’s downpour

Michael Mann of the School of Arts & Sciences says that many people blaming cloud seeding for Dubai storms are climate change deniers trying to divert attention from what’s really happening.

FULL STORY →



The New York Times

We don’t see what climate change is doing to us

In an Op-Ed, R. Jisung Park of the School of Social Policy & Practice says that public discourse around climate change overlooks the buildup of slow, subtle costs and their impact on human systems.

FULL STORY →



Salon.com

“Record-shattering” heat wave in Antarctica — yep, climate change is the culprit

Michael Mann of the School of Arts & Sciences says that persistent summer weather extremes like heat waves are becoming more common as people continue to warm the planet with carbon pollution.

FULL STORY →