Braxton Hicks, 7, of Livingston, Texas, holds his face to a portable fan to cool off during a heat wave that occurred during a baseball tournament in Ruston, Louisiana, earlier this month. With climate change driving average global temperatures higher, teams and parents are having to pay closer attention to the heat.Scientists say global heat has put 2023 on track to be Earth’s hottest year on record.
Fortunately, the pool of young people eager to make that difference is growing, as evidenced by a rising interest in the study of climatology, meteorology, and environmental and atmospheric sciences. Most important, perhaps, is a growing interest in the study of climate policy, said Allison Michaelis, assistant professor of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb.
“I have noticed — both in my time as a professor at in Carbondale and my current position here — a growing interest in climate-related education from students. That does not exclusively manifest as more majors or courses taught in climate science, but more interest in majors and classes that are related to or cover some aspect of climate and biodiversity issues, such as sustainability and renewable energy.
Michaelis said climatology is challenging because “we’re studying things we can’t prove. It’s not like a forecast where you make a hypothesis of what’s going to happen tomorrow and then, the very next day, we get to confirm whether or not the hypothesis verified.” At NIU, she said, research is being conducted on severe conductive storms, such as thunderstorms and super cells, hail and mesoscale conductive systems such as atmospheric rivers and snowstorms.The university just introduced a new climate emphasis into its undergraduate curricula, Michaelis said. “I know other meteorologic and atmospheric science programs have also added more curricula on climate and additional faculty with specific climate expertise,” she said.
“Very,” she said. She went into meteorology for two reasons. The Superstorm of 1993 that hit her hometown of Greensboro, North Carolina, on her birthday. And, “I was scared of severe weather, and wanted to learn as much as I could to be better informed and prepared.