Carlson Lecture — The Science of Hurricanes and Climate with Kerry Emanuel

The Lorenz Center is pleased to present the 2025 John H. Carlson Lecture, in partnership with the New England Aquarium and the Lowell Institute.

FEATURING
Professor Post-Tenure Kerry A. Emanuel

“Warmest climes but nurse the cruelest fangs.”

So said Ishmael, the narrator of Herman Melville’s novel Moby-Dick, warning of the dangers of navigating the tropical seas.

Why indeed do the most benign of Earth’s climates – the alluring subject of travel brochures and the dreams of winter’s sufferers – produce the most destructive storms on our planet? After reviewing the climatology of hurricanes and recounting how they have altered history, we’ll delve into such mysteries as why hurricanes are both violent and rare, how their beautifully coherent structures emerge from the benign but still chaotic background of tropical weather, and what physics govern their intensities, diameters, and tracks. We’ll then explore the fascinating and important question of how hurricanes respond to climate change, making use of observations, advanced models, theory, and newly emerging geological evidence of pre-historic hurricanes. Then we’ll end with an enigma: Do hurricanes alter climate?

In person at the Simons Theatre, Central Wharf, Boston
– OR –  via live stream with pre-registration.

Please Register by October 21

• Free and open to the public. Students and families welcome.
• Doors open at 5:30 with exhibits from MIT students and climate scientists in the Simons Theatre lobby.

Questions? Please contact Allison Drovairos

ABOUT OUR SPEAKER

Dr. Kerry A. Emanuel is the Cecil and Ida Green professor post-tenure of atmospheric science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he served on the faculty of the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences from 1981 to 2022. Before joining MIT, he was a faculty member at UCLA from 1978 to 1981.

Emanuel’s initial focus was on the dynamics of rain and snow banding in winter storms, but his interests gradually migrated to the meteorology of the tropics and to climate change. His specialty is hurricane physics and he was the first to investigate how long-term climate change might affect hurricane activity, an issue that continues to occupy him today. His interests also include cumulus convection, and advanced methods of sampling the atmosphere in aid of numerical weather prediction.

Emanuel is the author or co-author of over 300 peer-reviewed scientific papers, and three books, including Divine Wind: The History and Science of Hurricanes, published by Oxford University Press and aimed at a general audience, and What We Know about Climate Change, published by the MIT Press and now entering its third edition. His graduate textbook “Physics of the Tropical Atmosphere and Tropical Cyclones” will be published by Princeton University Press in 2026. He was co-founder of MIT’s Lorenz Center, a climate think tank devoted to basic, curiosity-driven climate research. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of the Royal Society of London.

ABOUT THIS SERIES

The John H. Carlson Lecture communicates exciting new results in climate science. Free of charge and open to the general public, this annual lecture series is made possible by a generous gift from MIT alumnus John H. Carlson to the Lorenz Center in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at MIT.