An ongoing series from the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability

A Dean's Lecture featuring

Scientists Isla Simpson and Tapio Schneider

moderated by

Marcia McNutt

Frontiers of Climate Science

Join us for a special seminar featuring two leading scientists whose work is advancing our understanding of the Earth’s climate system and the tools we use to predict its future. The talks will explore how artificial intelligence, observations, and Earth System Models can help answer fundamental questions about climate change, improve our understanding of long-term trends, and sharpen projections of future climate.

Isla Simpson

Senior Scientist and Section Head, Climate Analysis Section, NSF NCAR

Representing Long-Term Trends in Earth System Models: What Are We Getting Right and What Are We Getting Wrong?

This discussion will examine how well Earth System Models represent historical trends in the climate system. It will highlight where models perform well, where important challenges remain, and what these strengths and limitations mean for our ability to predict future climate change.

Tapio Schneider

Theodore Y. Wu Professor of Environmental Science and Engineering, Caltech

Fusing AI and Physics to Accelerate Discovery in Climate Science

Fundamental questions in climate science remain open: how clouds respond to warming, why rainfall extremes shift, and how much warming to expect this century. This discussion will explore how combining artificial intelligence with physical models creates new opportunities for scientific discovery. Drawing on the Climate Modeling Alliance’s work, it will show how models trained on Earth observations and high-resolution simulations can identify important physical processes, reveal where theories need refinement, and help constrain climate predictions. This approach is beginning to address long-standing questions about clouds and climate sensitivity while improving the predictions needed for adaptation and policy.