Climate school aims to provide in-depth technical information about the science of climate change and is open to all Caltech/JPL students, faculty and staff. See registration form for course descriptions. - For more information: Resnick website More »

Environmental Science & Technology, Environmental Science & Technology Letters and the ACS Division of Environmental Chemistry are seeking nominations for the James J. Morgan ES&T Early Career Award. Dr. Morgan, the first Editor-in-Chief of Environmental Science & Technology, took the helm of the journal at the age of 34. He... More »

An estimated 4.5 billion people in the developing world lack access to adequate sanitation facilities—a situation that contributes to millions of deaths every year as well as environmental pollution and economic losses. But even the best sanitation systems installed in the developing world can easily be rendered useless if they break down a... More »

The Linde Center for Global Environmental Science at Caltech is hosting a workshop, "Monsoons: Past, Present and Future" at the Keck Center on the campus of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, CA on May 18 - 22, 2015. In addition to this invitation-only workshop, there will be a short course (May 18) and a lecture (May 2... More »

Christian Frankenberg will join the faculty as an Associate Professor of Environmental Science and Engineering at Caltech beginning in Fall 2015. Christian is an expert in remote sensing, and was recently recognized by the American Geophysical Union with the Macelwane Medal given in recognition for “significant contributions to the geophysi... More »

The Ronald and Maxine Linde Center for Global Environmental Science hosted an international workshop on February 2 - 5, 2015 on the Caltech campus entitled “Southern Ocean Dynamics and Biogeochemistry.” The workshop brought together 50 world experts working at the interface of ocean circulation, chemical transport, ecosystem dynami... More »

Professor Mitchio Okumura Professor Mitchio Okumura received a 2015 Experimental Physical Chemistry award from the American Chemical Society for scientific contributions that serve as benchmark data to constrain climate models that describe the current state and future evolution of Earth's atmosphere. More »

Professor Bordoni Simona Bordoni, Assistant Professor of Environmental Science and Engineering, received the 2014 ISSNAF Award for Young Investigators for her research entitled "Fundamental Monsoon Dynamics: Aquaplanet monsoons and their response to climate changes." More »

Artist Rendition of the OCO-2 Observatory [Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech] The Linde + Robinson Laboratory for Global Environmental Science at Caltech is the location of one of Wennberg's TCCON stations. As OCO-2 orbits overhead, this station and the others in the TCCON network will play an important part in calibrating the satellite's carbo... More »

Clouds over the southern Indian Ocean. This image was acquired by one of the northward-viewing cameras of the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) instrument on NASA's polar-orbiting Terra spacecraft. [Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech] Aerosols, tiny particles in the atmosphere, play a significant role in Earth's climate, scattering and ... More »

Deep-ocean corals collected by Caltech researchers provide important information about past climates. [Credit: Caltech] Just as growth rings can offer insight into climate changes occurring during the lifespan of a tree, corals have much to tell about changes in the ocean. At Caltech, climate scientists Jess F. Adkins and Nivedita Thiaga... More »

John Eiler (left) and Daniel Stolper (right) with the Caltech-led team's prototype mass spectrometer—the Thermo IRMS 253 Ultra. This machine enabled the first precise measurements of molecules of methane that contain two heavy isotopes—13CH3D, which incorporates both a carbon-13 atom and a deuterium atom, and 12CH2D2, which includes two deuter... More »

This animation shows the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2, the first NASA spacecraft dedicated to studying carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere. [Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech] In July 2014, NASA will launch the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) to study the fate of carbon dioxide worldwide. It will not be the first satellite to measure carb... More »

Oil rigs, still drilling for oil in the Los Angeles basin, are one source of atmospheric methane; natural gas pipeline losses are another. Locations of methane measurements in the greater Los Angeles basin overlaid on a Google Earth satellite image. Yellow and red colors represent an excess of methane. Methane, a key greenhouse gas... More »

A small part of the Hofsjökull ice cap in Iceland, which encompasses several glaciers. The fan at upper left is part of a glacier called Múlajökull. [Credit: Caltech] A high-precision radar instrument from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., left Southern California for Iceland today to create detailed maps of how glaci... More »

During 2013, Michael Hoffmann was named as a Global Vision Visiting Scholar at Tsinghua University in Beijing. He was also named to honorary professorships at the Beijing University of Chemical Technology and the Beijing University of Science and Technology for career-long achievements in environmental science and engineering. In addition, he ... More »

Andrew Thompson Paul O. Wennberg At the Fall AGU meeting, AGU's Ocean Sciences section presented its Early Career Award to Andrew Thompson. The Early Career Award is given every other year to a member of the Ocean Sciences Section in recognition of significant contributions to and promise in the ocean sciences. [AGU Article] ... More »

Michael Hoffmann The Caltech Solar Toilet has been named as one of 7 key inventions that will save lives in the developing world in the 21st Century by Bill Gates and Bill Clinton in the December 2013 issue of Wired Magazine. [Wired Magazine Article] More details of our current prototype systems that are on their way to New Delh... More »

When termites munch on wood, the small bits are delivered to feed a community of unique microbes living in their guts, and in a complex process involving multiple steps, these microbes turn the hard, fibrous material into a nutritious meal for the termite host. One key step uses hydrogen to convert carbon dioxide into organic carbon—a pro... More »

Caltech glider, “Tashtego,” on the deck of the RRS James Cook following recovery from the North Atlantic. The glider had just completed a five month deployment collecting data from 804 dives to a depth of 1000m. Caltech undergraduate Madeleine Youngs (right) is seen inspecting the glider and some of the marine life that came back with it! ... More »

On Friday, March 8, Caltech hosted the 30th annual Informal Symposium on Kinetics and Photochemical Processes in the Atmosphere. The conference fosters collaborations between research communities and air pollution management agencies in Southern California. More than 150 participants from a broad spectrum of research areas including Atmospheric ... More »

Graduate student Clement Cid with the Caltech team's solar-powered toilet. [Credit: Caltech/Michael Hoffmann] Caltech's solar-powered toilet has won the Reinventing the Toilet Challenge issued by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Caltech engineer Michael Hoffmann and his colleagues were awarded $100,000 for their design, which they demons... More »

There is an old trick for remembering the difference between stalactites and stalagmites in a cave: Stalactites hold tight to the ceiling while stalagmites might one day grow to reach the ceiling. Now, it seems, stalagmites might also fill a hole in our understanding of Earth's climate system and how that system is likely to respond to the rapid... More »

The Los Angeles Conservancy has honored the Linde + Robinson Laboratory for Global Environmental Science with a 2012 Preservation Award. The jury of experts in architecture, historic preservation, and community development cited "Caltech's leadership in preservation, technology, and sustainability" and said Linde + Robinson "inspires on many lev... More »

Atmospheric researcher John H. Seinfeld, the Louis E. Nohl Professor and professor of chemical engineering at Caltech, has been named one of two winners of this year's Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement, an honor regarded as the top prize of environmental science, environmental health, and energy. Seinfeld was cited by the Tyler Prize ... More »

The field of study of Andrew Thompson, assistant professor of environmental science and engineering at Caltech, presents not only theoretical challenges but logistical ones as well. That's because he is interested in the circulation and ecology of the Southern Ocean—a cold, remote region near Antarctica—and the role it plays in global climate.... More »

New GPS faculty members Victor Tsai (left) and Andrew Thompson (right). For Andrew Thompson, assistant professor of environmental science and engineering who joined the Caltech Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences in August, growing up in Rhode Island gave him a natural affinity for the ocean. However it wasn't until the summer befor... More »

Prototype concept for the Self-Contained, PV-Powered Domestic Toilet and Wastewater Treatment System. [Credit: Brian Lee] PASADENA, Calif.—Environmental scientist and engineer Michael Hoffmann of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) has received a $400,000 grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to build a solar-power... More »

The Linde Center's new home, the Linde + Robinson Laboratory, will be the nation's first LEED Platinum laboratory and is profiled in Solutions Journal, a magazine of the Rocky Mountain Institute. [Magazine Article] More »

Viruses are parasites; they need to live inside another organism to survive. Figuring out just who a virus's host is can be difficult, however. Especially when you're talking about bacteriophages—a particularly pervasive group of bacteria-infecting viruses. The problem lies in identifying which bacteriophages are infecting which bacteria,... More »

A Caltech building where scientists used to think about the origin of the universe is morphing into a place where they will ponder the fate of our planet. This summer, members of the newly created Ronald and Maxine Linde Center for Global Environmental Science will move into the former Robinson Laboratory of Astrophysics, reborn as the Linde + ... More »

PASADENA, Calif.—If you're sitting on a bench in New York City's Central Park in winter, you're probably freezing. After all, the average temperature in January is 32 degrees Fahrenheit. But if you were just across the pond in Porto, Portugal, which shares New York's latitude, you'd be much warmer—the average temperature is a balmy 48 degrees Fa... More »

Professor Hoffman Michael R. Hoffmann, James Irvine Professor of Environmental Science, has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). Professor Hoffmann was elected for oxidative treatment technologies for the removal of organic and inorganic contaminants from water. Election to the National Academy of Engineering is am... More »

PASADENA, Calif.—About 450 million years ago, Earth suffered the second-largest mass extinction in its history—the Late Ordovician mass extinction, during which more than 75 percent of marine species died. Exactly what caused this tremendous loss in biodiversity remains a mystery, but now a team led by researchers at the California Institute of ... More »

PASADENA, Calif.-In an effort to find ways to minimize the damage caused by natural hazards, the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) has established the Terrestrial Hazard Observation and Reporting Center (THOR), funded by $6.7 million from Foster and Coco Stanback of Irvine, California, and $3.35 million from the Gordon and Betty Moore... More »

Professor Bordoni Congratulations to Simona Bordoni, Assistant Professor of Environmental Science and Engineering, for being selected to join The New York Academy of Sciences 2010 Science and Technology in Society (SPS) forum in Kyoto, Japan entitled "The Lights and Shadows of Science and Technology." More »

Professor Flagan Caltech faculty member Richard Flagan, the Irma and Ross McCollum—William H. Corcoran Professor of Chemical Engineering and professor of environmental science and engineering, has been elected a member of the 2010 class of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). His election brings to 31 the number of Institute facul... More »

PASADENA, Calif.—A previously unrecognized player in the process by which gases produced by trees and other plants become aerosols—microscopically small particles in the atmosphere—has been discovered by a research team led by scientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). Their research on the creation and effects of these c... More »

PASADENA, Calif.- To address the complex issue of global climate change from a wide range of disciplines, Ronald and Maxine Linde have established an $18 million endowment for the California Institute of Technology to create the Ronald and Maxine Linde Center for Global Environmental Science, uniting faculty from chemistry, engineering, geology,... More »