In this week’s episode, host Kristin Hayes talks with Emily Theokritoff, a research associate at Imperial College London. Theokritoff specializes in climate damage attribution—the emerging science of connecting human activity and climate change to extreme weather events. Theokritoff breaks down this evolving field of study, how research that attributes extreme weather events to climate change is conducted, the challenges posed by a lack of historical data in parts of the world, and how scientists deal with uncertainty in determining the causes of past and future events. She also shares her perspective on how scientists in the field of extreme weather attribution are adapting research and communication methods to provide the public with faster, clearer insights in the face of increasingly frequent and intense extreme weather events.

References and recommendations:

“Mapped: How climate change affects extreme weather around the world” from Carbon Brief; https://interactive.carbonbrief.org/attribution-studies/index.html

Connecting Climate Change to the Weather We See, with Emily Theokritoff

In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Vivek Srikrishnan about factors that contribute to sea level rise. Srikrishnan, an assistant professor at Cornell University, describes the difficulties involved in analyzing the impact of the complex factors related to climate and climate change, which in turn lead to uncertainties in projecting the extent of future sea level rise. In a new publication, Srikrishnan and coauthors model different scenarios that capture those uncertainties. Srikrishnan also points out how short-lived greenhouse gases can lead to greater ice melt compared to more persistent greenhouse gases, as well as the irreversible nature of ice melts.

References and recommendations:

“The interplay of future emissions and geophysical uncertainties for projections of sea-level rise” by Chloe Darnell, Lisa Rennels, Frank Errickson, Tony Wong, and Vivek Srikrishnan; https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-025-02457-0

“The Earth Transformed” by Peter Frankopan; https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/635264/the-earth-transformed-by-peter-frankopan/

Understanding Uncertainty in Climate Change and Sea Level Rise, with Vivek Srikrishnan

Resources Radio is a weekly podcast by Resources for the Future. Each week we talk to leading experts about climate change, electricity, ecosystems, and more, making the latest research accessible to everyone.

New tracks tagged #climate modeling