Climate Changed: Models and the Built World

Models change our worlds. From global carbon flux models to regional coastal flood prediction maps, climate-related models influence how we know our environment, how we build our cities, and how we act on a climate-altered planet. Yet such models typically require specialized knowledge to navigate, and because the climate crisis is inherently multidimensional, technical expertise in isolation is not enough.

Climate Changed examines models and their imperfect yet central role in understanding the relationship between global climate dynamics and the human-built environment. It compares and synthesizes the methods and function of models in disciplines ranging from architecture and planning to climate science and natural hazards research. This book considers how disparate models are woven together to understand the climate crisis, underscoring the necessity of combining locally situated and transdisciplinary knowledge with climate science to navigate current and future cataclysmic changes. It highlights the challenges and consequences of disciplinary boundaries, siloed scientific knowledge, and uneven data and develops ways to overcome these limitations.

As the world faces the effects of climate change, climate scientists are debating the future of their field; architects, engineers, and planners are designing in the context of climate change; and society at large is grappling with how to take action. This book brings those communities together to chart a path forward.

Mara Freilich is an assistant professor in the Department of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences and Division of Applied Mathematics at Brown University.

Irmak Turan is vice president of sustainability and resilience at Thornton Tomasetti.

Jessica Varner is an assistant professor of history in the Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning at the Weitzman School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Lizzie Yarina is an assistant professor of architecture and planning in the College of Arts, Media, and Design at Northeastern University.