Astronomy and the climate crisis: Scientists make some connections - Space.com

This has created a growing relationship between astronomy and the evolving study of climate change, which an international team of scientists explores in three new studies. .

But by studying far-off exoplanets, researchers can better understand our own planet (and vice versa.) So it's no surprise that astronomers are heavily involved in studying Earth's climate crisis.

In these new studies, researchers examine how climate change is affecting astronomy and how the field is connected to the mounting global crisis. .

With our unique perspective on the universe, it is our responsibility to communicate, inside and outside our community, about the disastrous consequences of anthropogenic climate change on our planet and our society,"  Faustine Cantalloube, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA) and lead author of one of the new studies, said in a statement. .

For the new research, an international team of astronomers banded together to examine how climate change and astronomy interact — specifically, to see how astronomical observations are affected by climate change and how astronomy as a field contributes to the growing climate crisis. .

To assess the carbon footprint of astronomical institutions, scientists at the MPIA added up their carbon dioxide emissions for a single year (2018) and found that they contributed about 18 tons of carbon dioxide per scientist just for research activities.

But reduction is rarely a question of personal choice," MPIA group leader Knud Jahnke, co-lead author of one study, said in the same statement!

In these studies, the researchers made a number of recommendations about how astronomical institutions like the MPIA can reduce their emissions!

Though astronomy research has an impact on climate change with these emissions, our changing climate is conversely affecting the quality of astronomical observations, the researchers found in one of the three studies.

And, while Paranal is one of the driest places on our planet, some studies predict that, due to climate change, El Niño events will increase in amplitude

The researchers hope that these studies will help astronomers consider how climate change might affect their work and, on the other side of the coin, how they can alter their research to contribute less to the climate crisis.