Earth System Science

Earth system science spans knowledge across the lithosphere, biosphere, atmosphere, cryosphere and hydrosphere. Earth system science is intellectually interesting, as it seeks to understand the world around us, as well as relevant for solving problems relating to energy, climate and pollution.
Earth as seen from space, with India centered.

Faculty

Our carbon emissions are leading the world to unprecedented increases in global temperatures. Only their complete elimination will eventually preserve a livable climate in the long term. However, it is clear that the already growing risks we are observing require us to think of other methods that might help us mitigate such risks in the immediate future. Climate intervention techniques might help us quickly cool down the planet by reducing incoming sunlight. While many have been proposed, their potential safe application can only happen after a broad, legitimate and robust research program that does not exist yet. We might not think we need climate intervention right now—but 20 years from now, what do you wish your future self would know about it? And how do we start building that knowledge right now? Daniele Visioni is an Assistant Professor at Cornell University in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. He’s a climate scientist with expertise in modeling the impacts of various climate intervention techniques that might help us mitigate the risks of climate change, collaborating with other scientists across disciplines to build an international and interdisciplinary research program. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community.