3Qs: The current state of climate change science
Earlier this week, the public learned the details of the upcoming fifth assessment report (or, "AR5") of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an international body whose mandate is not to do new science, but to assess the state of the existing science. IPCC assessments cover a lot of ground, from the basics of physical science to adaptation and mitigation. Among other factors, the AR5 is expected to report that climate change is almost certainly caused by human activities, that the sea level is expected to rise more than previously estimated, and that the best-case-scenario global temperature increase could be lower than previously estimated. We asked Auroop Ganguly, a civil and environmental engineering associate professor whose expertise lies in climate change and extreme weather, to discuss the report and what its conclusions mean for developing long-term solutions.