News & Media: Interconnected Systems

MIT Prof./CS3 faculty affiliate Susan Solomon joins Rachel Feltman on Scientific American’s Science Quickly podcast to discuss her experience researching the cause and solution for the Antarctic ozone hole in the 1980s. “Amazingly, we can show, with 95 percent confidence, now the Antarctic ozone hole is beginning to heal,” says Solomon, who published a paper on that topic last year. “That was a real incredible moment for me…I was there in 1986, and in 2026 I saw this paper appear that actually shows that we can be confident we’re seeing recovery.” (Scientific American)

Scientists say an exception in the Montreal Protocol for the use of ozone-depleting feedstocks could set the ozone recovery back seven years, in new study co-authored by MIT Prof./CS3 faculty affiliate Susan Solomon and CS3 Research Scientist Luke Western (MIT News)

How the climate crisis has already impacted oceans locally and globally, the biggest challenges moving forward, and potential solutions to help oceans heal from human-caused degradation, with Gareth Lawson, Senior Scientist in Ocean Conservation at the Conservation Law Foundation, and Raffaele Ferrari, MIT Prof. of Oceanography/CS3 faculty affiliate. Each episode of Climate Reveal takes a deep dive into a specific aspect of the climate crisis and ongoing work toward solutions. (Boston College Creative Communication Lab)

With warmer ocean temperatures, the composition of marine plankton could shift from protein-rich to carb-heavy, suggests new study co-authored by MIT CS3 Senior Research Scientist Stephanie Dutkiewicz (MIT News) (Coverage: Earth.com, Oceanographic Magazine)

A new model shows how levels of the “atmosphere’s detergent” may rise and fall in response to climate change, according to a study co-authored by MIT Prof. Arlene Fiore and postdoc Paolo Giani, both CS3 affiliates (MIT News)

MIT CS3 Deputy Director C. Adam Schlosser highlights what we can expect from the global to the local (Boston Globe)

Lecture series explores the science of climate change and policies to stabilize the global climate (MIT Open Learning)

A new study co-authored by MIT Prof./CS3 faculty affiliate Andrew Babbin and MIT CS3 Principal Research Scientist Ryan Woosley finds hitchhiking bacteria dissolve essential ballast in ubiquitous “snow” particles, which could counteract the ocean’s ability to sequester carbon. (MIT News)

A 2025 study co-authored by MIT Prof./CS3 faculty affiliate Susan Solomon showed that "the actions taken under the Montreal Protocol to reduce ozone-depleting substances are the primary reason for the recovery of the ozone layer." (Discover)

In research that could help elucidate humans’ role in global warming, MIT Professor/CS3 faculty affiliate Susan Solomon and co-authors show how three major natural events impacted global atmospheric temperatures (MIT News)