From sea to land to air, investigating the changing climate

The next time the Arctic’s mud season rolls around, Harvard scientists will be there, testing the air to record what the ground is releasing, searching for evidence of a climate change wild card that could spring a nasty worldwide surprise.

The wild card consists of methane — a powerful greenhouse gas — and carbon dioxide, perhaps the best-known climate-changer. The gases would be released, possibly in enormous quantities, by rotting organic material that for centuries was inert, frozen year-round in the subterranean permafrost.

When it comes to climate change, Jim Anderson is stalking surprises. Harvard’s Weld Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry, Anderson has turned his lab’s focus toward the complex Earth-ice-atmosphere interactions of climate change that remain poorly understood despite the efforts of thousands of scientists worldwide ...

Read the full article in the Harvard Gazette