Extreme Events and Climate Change: What We Know and What We Can Do

Ellen Marie Douglas, PE, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Hydrology, School for the Environment, University of Massachusetts Boston

This lecture is co-hosted by the League of Women Voters of Boston and Massachusetts and the University of Massachusetts Boston School for the Environment.

There are three truths that climate science tells us about what we can expect from climate change. The first is small changes in an average value, such as average global temperatures, will have bigger effects on the extremes. We have seen this play out in the extreme weather events that have wrought havoc across New England and the nation over the last decade or longer. Record-breaking events will always occur, but the time between these events should increase. Under climate change, records are getting broken in record time! The second truth is that our history of carbon dioxide emissions has embedded a certain amount of change into the climate system, to which we will need to adapt. The third truth is that if we don’t account for our changing climate in planning and designing, our plans and designs will be wrong. In this presentation, Ellen Marie Douglas will discuss observations of our changing climate, what changes may be in Boston’s future, and some plans for how to adapt to these changes.

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