Environment

An analysis by the MIT Sloan Sustainability Initiative and Climate Interactive has found that planting a trillion trees would only prevent 0.27 degrees of warming by 2100, reports Maxine Joselow for The Washington Post. “Trees are great. I personally love to be out in the forests as much as I possibly can,” says Prof. John Sterman. “But the reality is very simple: You can plant a trillion trees, and even if they all survived, which wouldn’t happen, it just wouldn’t make that much difference to the climate.”

Researchers at MIT have discovered that the ocean’s color has changed considerably in the last 20 years and is “another warning sign of human-driven climate change,” reports Maria Luisa Paul for The Washington Post. “These ecosystems have taken millions of years to evolve together and be in balance,” says Senior Research Scientist Stephanie Dutkiewicz. “Changes in such a short amount of time are not good because they put the whole ecosystem out of balance.”

A study by MIT researchers has found that over 65% of the world’s oceans have changed color over the past 20 years and “human-caused climate change is likely to blame,” reports Rebecca Falconer for Axios. The researchers found that: “Tropical ocean regions near the equator have been particularly affected by this steady change from blue to green,” Falconer notes. 

MIT researchers have found that over the past two decades, the color of the world’s oceans has changed significantly, reports Talib Visram for Fast Company. The change “is likely due to human-induced climate change,” explains Visram. “The color shifts matter in that they signal changes in ecosystem balance, which have the power to disrupt fragile marine food webs.”

CNN reporter Jack Guy spotlights a new study co-authored by researchers at MIT, which shows that the ocean’s color has changed considerably over the last 20 years and human-caused climate change is likely responsible. “All changes are causing an imbalance in the natural organization of ecosystems,” says senior research scientist Stephanie Dutkiewicz. “Such imbalance will only get worse over time if our oceans keep heating.”

Researchers at MIT and elsewhere have discovered that the ocean’s hue has changed significantly over the last 20 years, reports Laura Baisas for Popular Science. “A shift in ocean color is an indication that ecosystems within the surface may also be changing,” writes Baisas. “While the team can’t point to exactly how marine ecosystems are changing to reflect the shift, they are quite sure that human-induced climate change is likely behind it.”

A new study led by a team including researchers at MIT has found that more than half of the world’s ocean has changed color in the last 20 years, reports Coco Liu for Bloomberg. “The color shift could be caused by changes in plankton communities that are critical to the marine food chain,” writes Liu. “And biodiversity isn’t the only thing at stake: The shift could also affect how much carbon dioxide the ocean takes up, since different types of plankton have different abilities to absorb it."

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.

Sergey Paltsev, deputy director of the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, speaks with WCVB-TV about the pressing need for action to address the climate crisis, following the Earth’s hottest days on record. Paltsev emphasized that he hopes the record-shattering heat will motivate policymakers and the general public to take action to prevent extreme climate events in the future.

Researchers from MIT and elsewhere have found that new building codes put in place to combat climate change could impact home affordability in the greater Boston area, reports Paula Ebben for CBS Boston, “If widely adopted, [the codes] could add up to $23,000 to the cost of an average home, leaving an additional 33,000 Massachusetts residents priced out of the market,” writes Ebben.

A study from MIT and elsewhere has found that a new building code in Massachusetts designed to promote “net zero” development, “would increase construction costs and potentially worsen the state’s housing crisis,” reports Greg Ryan for NBC Boston.

NBC Boston’s Jeff Saperstone visits MIT to learn more about how researchers discovered that a common hydrogel used in cosmetic creams, industrial coatings and pharmaceutical capsules can absorb moisture from the atmosphere as the temperature rises. The material could one day be used to harvest moisture for drinking water or feeding crops. “For a planet that's getting hotter, this could be a game-changing discovery,” Saperstone notes.

Boston Globe columnist Thomas Farragher spotlights how researchers from MIT’s Haystack Observatory have built an “ice penetrator,” a device designed to help scientists study how sea ice is changing. Chris Eckert, a mechanical engineer at Haystack, explains, “Global warming is a real thing and we need a new class of instrumentation and measurements to truly understand it.”

Lisa Dyson PhD ‘04 founded Air Protein, a company looking to “bring recycled carbon cultivated into food with the taste and texture of chicken, meat, and seafood,” reports Geri Stengel for Forbes.