Climate Intelligence

Making Climate-Informed Decisions

APL is developing sensors, systems, and models to provide key intelligence on how the environment is changing and how climate pressures may impact future missions. Our teams are identifying climate threats, enabling climate-informed planning, and developing early warning systems.

Mission

Featured Work

Artificial Intelligence for Climate Action

Leveraging the power of artificial intelligence and mathematics to spur innovation and novel solutions to challenges at the intersection of climate change and national security

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Accelerating Air Quality Forecasts

In the last several years, record-setting wildfires have released millions of smoke-borne contaminants into the air, setting off air quality alerts across the country. APL is using artificial intelligence to accelerate air quality forecasts and ultimately deliver a better understanding of how and where these pollutants will travel.

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Discovering Climate Tipping Points

Artificial intelligence experts and oceanographers are integrating AI with traditional climate modeling methods to enable scientific researchers to better understand climate tipping points, critical thresholds that, once crossed, could “tip” a natural climate system into an entirely different state.

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Coral fragments housed in APL’s NAMI facility.

Reversing the Loss of Coral Reefs

Recognizing the need to safeguard America’s coastlines and the value natural structures play in their protection, APL researchers are finding ways to use materials science to support coral reef growth and restoration.

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Tracking Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Using a combination of machine learning, satellite imagery, and localized emissions data, APL advances its accurate, scalable, and easily configurable greenhouse gas monitoring framework for road transportation.

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Hayley DeHart, a genomics research scientist at APL, loads water samples into a sequencer while on board a ship during the team’s trip to Monterey Bay.

Enlisting eDNA to Understand Ecosystems

APL researchers are using genetic information to observe animals, plants, and microbes in their natural environments, and pioneering environmental DNA (eDNA) analysis methods to study marine ecosystems that the world relies on as the foundation of global food webs.

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James Johnson and Danielle Nachman in APL’s PFAS research laboratory.

Eliminating Forever Chemicals

Multiple studies have linked PFAS exposure to harmful health effects in humans and animals, and without a natural way to break them down, the chemicals persist in soil and contaminate the environment — including water. APL scientists are developing several technologies to capture and destroy these “forever chemicals.”

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We need continuous, ubiquitous sensing to understand current states and predict future changes of Earth’s systems. The work we are doing in sensing and modeling will provide next-generation data critical to mitigating climate change and its effects.

Bobby Armiger Principal Engineer, Research and Exploratory Development

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Destroying PFAS - “Forever Chemicals”

Multiple studies have linked PFAS exposure to harmful health effects in humans and animals, and without a natural way to break them down, the chemicals persist in soil and contaminate the environment — including water. Now, scientists from APL are developing several technologies to capture and destroy these so-called “forever chemicals.”

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The Emerging Arctic

The Arctic, once known for its extreme cold and ice, is undergoing rapid changes due to climate change. APL's team aboard the RV Sikuliaq, a 261-foot ice-capable vessel owned by the National Science Foundation (NSF), is studying how radio waves travel through the Arctic atmosphere.

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Beyond the Ice: APL Researchers Expand eDNA Research into Polar Regions

APL researchers ventured into unchartered territory in Antarctica aboard Lindblad Expeditions’ newest state-of-the-art PC5 Category A ice class vessel National Geographic Resolution. The trip delivered stunning vistas, penguin and marine mammal sightings and — most importantly — incomparable access to some of the most pristine habitats in the world.

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Game Changers — Climate Intelligence

At the 2023 Research Frontiers Forum, APL assembled diverse thought leaders to discuss Climate Change and National Security: Goals. Gaps. Game Changers.

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Meet Our Experts

Impact

Climate Security

APL is bringing all of its core competencies to bear on this critical challenge area, assembling top experts from a variety of scientific fields and partners from across the Johns Hopkins enterprise, industry, and government to explore strategic opportunities to make the greatest impact on climate change.

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