The IPCC Fifth Assessment Report, released in 2013 and 2014 presents a comprehensive picture of the nature of the climate-change challenge and the options for addressing it. In exploring the landscape of observations and projections, the report characterizes physical, biological, and human dimensions, highlighting aspects where multiple interacting mechanisms and persistent uncertainties create risks. These risks emerge not from climate acting in isolation but from the intersection of hazards from climate triggers, vulnerability, and exposure. A wide range of risks have already materialized. Climate changes and impacts of climate changes that have already occurred are evident on all continents and across the oceans.
 
Future changes and their impacts will depend on future emissions of greenhouse gases, as well as on investments in adaptation. Strong evidence for a relationship between warming and cumulative emissions means that greenhouse gas emissions eventually need to go to zero, independent of the temperature goal. But the risk of impacts and the constraints to addressing them through adaptation increases strongly with the amount of warming. A world of continued high emissions leads to risk of impacts that are severe, pervasive, and in some cases irreversible.
 
Currently, the world has the opportunity to avoid the word impacts of climate change and stabilize warming in the range of 2°C above pre-industrial levels, but reaching an ambitious goal becomes increasingly difficult with delay, incomplete participation, or limitations on the range of available non-emitting energy technologies. Ambitious action to address climate change, through both adaptation and mitigation, has the potential for a wide range of co-benefits that can enhance sustainable development, contributing to robust economies and vibrant communities. 

About the Speaker

Field’s research emphasizes impacts of climate change, from the molecular to the global scale. He is co-chair of Working Group II of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which led the effort on the IPCC Special Report on “Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation” (2012) and Working Group II contribution to the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (2014). He is a recipient of the Heinz Award, the Max Plank Research Award, the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award, and the Roger Revelle Medal. Field was elected to membership in the National Academy of Sciences (2001), and fellowships in the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2009), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2010), the Ecological Society of America (2012), and the American Geophysical Union (2014). Field received his PhD from Stanford in 1981 and has been at the Carnegie Institution for Science since 1984.

Talk Sponsors: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the C.C. Mei Fund at MIT. 
 
For more information about this new series please visit: 
https://sites.google.com/site/mitcedss/cee-dss
Organizer: Lydia Bourouiba (lbouro@mit.edu)
 
Upcoming Distinguished Speakers for the Fall 2015: 
10/5 Harry Swinney, University of Texas at Austin 
10/19 Simon Levin, Princeton University