Climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our time. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) plays a vital role in assessing the state of the science on this issue, and their latest report, Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis, the first of three reports in the sixth assessment cycle, is a milestone in our understanding of the problem and a testament to the hard work and dedication of scientists from around the world. One of the scientists who contributed to the latest IPCC report is Sara Blichner, a post-doctoral researcher at the Department of Environmental Science.

Blichner’s work focuses on understanding and reducing the uncertainty in anthropogenic aerosol radiative forcing, specifically biogenic organic aerosols. She aims to make the organic aerosol component in climate models more precise by following the chain of how trees emit gases that react in the atmosphere and produce aerosols, resulting in a cooling effect on the climate.

Contribution towards Chapter 6

Chapter 6 of Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis focuses on short-lived climate forcers, which include pollutants like black carbon, methane, and ozone. As a contributing author to the report’s sixth chapter, Blichner’s role involved processing data and producing figures for that chapter that were reproducible and adhered to the principles of open science.

Read more at the Department of Environmental Science ...