Mason researcher conducting climate vulnerability, impact and adaptation analysis

Luis Ortiz, Assistant Professor, Atmospheric, Oceanic and Earth Sciences (AOES), with a multi-disciplinary team of researchers from The New School, Columbia University, and Stevens Institute of Technology, is developing projections of the thermal environment of New York City (NYC) using a combination of physical and statistical models and accounting for contributions from large-scale climate as well as local urban impacts. 

Key collaborators on the project include:Timon McPhearson, Professor of Urban Ecology, Director of the Urban Systems Lab, and research faculty at the Tishman Environment and Design Center at The New School; Phillip Orton, Research Associate Professor of Ocean Engineering at Stevens Institute of Technology; andRadley Horton, a Lamont Research Professor at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.

The team is employing advances in urban climate simulations that model the physical processes unique to cities, including atmosphere-surface interactions due to urban development and human activity. They are leveraging new and existing data from a variety of sources including model output from global climate projections (e.g., CMIP6 multi-model ensemble) and local urban morphology parameters derived from public sources (e.g., building tax lots, OpenStreetMaps) to build a set of simulations of the historical and future climate of New York City. 

The team is collaborating with researchers across the NYC Town & Gown: Climate Vulnerability, Impact, and Adaptation Analysis project (NYC VIA or NYC Town & Gown VIA)

and NYC stakeholders to define and refine final products, which will include maps and other visual media, underlying data tables, and report text. As part of the project, the team will also interface with the NYC Mayor’s Office of Climate and Environmental Justice (MOCEJ) and other city agencies to develop relevant data products. Finally, the team will collaborate with the New York City Panel on Climate Change to include main findings on upcoming reports.  

Ortiz received $39,879 from the City of New York through a subcontract with The New School for this project. Funding began in September 2022 and will end in late Janunary 2024.