Listen to Dr. Gavin Schmidt discussing the role of climate modeling at NASA
Dr. Gavin Schmidt of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) discussing the role of climate modeling at NASA.
GSFC/NASA
-
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.Learn more about climate change and the transition to renewable energy in this interview with Phil the Fixer.
-
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center and the National Center for Supercomputing ApplicationsInfrared technology changes what we can see in space.
-
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.We're basically living in one big lava lamp.Media Editors: Michele Metych , Lauren Sims
-
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.Cloud seeding can produce an extra 5 to 15% of precipitation.
-
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.Sir David Attenborough might have the most-recognizable voice in the world.
-
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.Overview of the Hubble Space Telescope, including how it works and its important discoveries.
-
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.Learn about carbon dioxide and its relationship to warming conditions at Earth's surface, as explained by John P. Rafferty, biological and Earth sciences editor of Encyclopædia Britannica.
News •
NASA's Voyager 1 closes in on a light-day in interstellar space for a new distance record
• Nov. 14, 2026, 8:01 AM ET (AP)
Europe's Hera spacecraft begins close inspections of an asteroid rammed by NASA in a 2022 test
• Nov. 11, 2026, 5:12 PM ET (AP)
Want to fly to the moon? NASA is looking for new astronauts to help grow its Artemis program
• Nov. 7, 2026, 1:00 PM ET (AP)
What is the Paris climate agreement and why does 1.5C matter?
• Nov. 6, 2026, 11:39 AM ET (BBC)
NASA space telescope plunges to Earth after two decades studying cosmic explosions
• Nov. 4, 2026, 2:41 PM ET (AP)
Transcript
GAVIN SCHMIDT: NASA obviously is very focused on what we can see from space, what we can learn from space about our own planet. And so we have a lot of satellites in orbit that are producing huge amounts of data that are telling us about how the clouds are changing, how the sea surface temperatures is changing, what's going on with ozone, what's going on with aerosols. And all of these things are giving a--a unique view of the planet as it is right now.
The role of models is to integrate that information, to synthesize that information with what we know about physics, what we know about sources of aerosols, what we know about atmospheric chemistry, what we know about ocean dynamics. And then build a picture that allows us to go from the information that we're seeing from the satellite to infer things about what we think or what we think about the--the whole planet, how it's changing.
Modellers don't actually have a crystal ball. There are many, many things that are going to happen in the future that we can't predict. That's going to depend on economic development, technological development, societal development. All of those things are completely outside of the ken of the climate modeller like--like myself. So, what we can do instead is we can do scenarios. We can ask "what if" questions: what if we continue to increase the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere? What if we continue to increase the amount of tropical deforestation? What if we continue to increase the amount of air pollution from Asia and from the rest of the world? And we can say, okay, well if those things happen, then these are likely to be the climatic effects. These are likely to be the changes in temperatures, the changes in statistics of heat waves, in rainfall patterns, in rainfall intensity. And we try and put those together and test them with, you know, observations that we've had over the past when we got good information from the satellite record. And, you know, even going further back where we have information from proxy records that allow us to test our whole model system that we--that we understand where the major drivers and the effects are.
The role of models is to integrate that information, to synthesize that information with what we know about physics, what we know about sources of aerosols, what we know about atmospheric chemistry, what we know about ocean dynamics. And then build a picture that allows us to go from the information that we're seeing from the satellite to infer things about what we think or what we think about the--the whole planet, how it's changing.
Modellers don't actually have a crystal ball. There are many, many things that are going to happen in the future that we can't predict. That's going to depend on economic development, technological development, societal development. All of those things are completely outside of the ken of the climate modeller like--like myself. So, what we can do instead is we can do scenarios. We can ask "what if" questions: what if we continue to increase the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere? What if we continue to increase the amount of tropical deforestation? What if we continue to increase the amount of air pollution from Asia and from the rest of the world? And we can say, okay, well if those things happen, then these are likely to be the climatic effects. These are likely to be the changes in temperatures, the changes in statistics of heat waves, in rainfall patterns, in rainfall intensity. And we try and put those together and test them with, you know, observations that we've had over the past when we got good information from the satellite record. And, you know, even going further back where we have information from proxy records that allow us to test our whole model system that we--that we understand where the major drivers and the effects are.
Last Modification: