Ask MIT Climate

Dry spells and downpours

How can climate change cause both more intense droughts and more severe floods? With help from Prof. Mathew Barlow, we dive into the water cycle on a warming planet, and

To the ice sheets with a polar scientist

In our previous episode, we spoke with Dr. Sarah Das, a Scientist Emeritus at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, about how climate change is affecting the big polar ic

Polar ice in a warming world

The frozen parts of our planet—from sprawling polar ice sheets and floating sea ice to mountain glaciers and frigid soils—face profound risks from climate change. Already

A hard look at steel

From cars and ships to bridges and skyscrapers, steel forms the landscape of modern life. At the same time, steelmaking is one of the world’s biggest industrial sources o

An economist’s guide to climate change

Solutions to climate change, like building clean energy, come with a price tag. But unchecked warming also brings serious costs. As we make investments to rein in our cli

Re-air and update: Carbon pricing

What exactly is a carbon price, and how does it work? To prepare for a new episode about climate economics, we’re re-airing this season one episode in which MIT professor

The (micro)grid of the future

Solar panels, batteries, microgrids, and other emerging energy technologies are making it easier than ever before for a community to produce some or all of its own power.

The reshuffling of life on Earth

Climate change is putting pressure not only on humans, but also on our fellow species. How can plants, animals, and other living things survive as their habitats are tran

Taking Earth’s temperature

The past three years have been the three hottest humanity has ever measured. But who does the measuring, and how? Dr. Samantha Burgess, of the European Union’s Copernicus

The nuclear price tag

Nuclear power offers huge amounts of round-the-clock energy free of climate-warming pollution. In the United States, it’s also become very expensive to build. As governme

Marshes, mangroves, meadows

Salt marshes humming with insects and birds. Mangrove forests with tangled, arching roots. Seagrass meadows that blanket the ocean floor. The world’s coastal saltwater we

New season, new name!

The eighth season of MIT’s climate change podcast starts next week, and we’ve got some news! TILclimate is now Ask MIT Climate. It’s part of an effort to bring all of our

Update: Where we've been and where we're going

We’re dropping into your feed to share the news that our founding host, Laur Hesse Fisher, is departing MIT and TILclimate. In this episode, Laur sits down with new host

Transmission: Power to the people

Power lines may not look as high-tech and inspiring as a wind turbine or a solar field. But as MIT’s Joshua Hodge explains, these lines—and the rest of the sprawling “mac

Cleaner air

Here at TILclimate, we’re often asked about the health and environmental effects of materials in solar panels and batteries. But what if the greatest costs are the ones w

Dealing with dead batteries

The world’s demand for batteries to power electric vehicles is growing at incredible speed. What will we do with all these batteries when they die? Dr. Linda Gaines of Ar

Geothermal: Earth’s infinite clean power

Deep beneath the Earth’s surface, a molten stew of metals radiates vast amounts of energy. Prof. Roland Horne, Director of the Stanford Geothermal Program, joins TILclima

The great indoors

Modern buildings are complex machines, using heating, cooling and a host of other appliances to turn energy into comfort. But that energy comes with a cost: today, our bu

Did climate change do that?

A new type of climate science is allowing us to draw clearer connections between our warming planet, and the extreme weather events this warming creates. Thanks to “clima

Hasn't the climate changed before?

The Earth has gone through massive climate change before—many times over, in fact!—but human civilization has not. Prof. David McGee, a specialist in the study of ancient