ANNA POSSNER
What motivates you?
The role of clouds in a changing climate is something we’ve not fully understood for decades. Now we are at a stage where we have computational capabilities and planned experimental initiatives, like the cloud brightening project, with which we can hope to really make headway.
Have you ever had moments when you felt like giving up?
Doing research sometimes feels like living on a rollercoaster. Sometimes you do not make headway for months, which can be immensely frustrating. However, it’s then even more rewarding when you have a breakthrough.
What’s your response to people who say that your project won’t work?
We don’t know whether marine cloud brightening will work, but this project offers us an opportunity to run experiments and collect valuable data, not just for the cloud brightening project but for understanding aerosol- cloud interactions in general.
Where do you see the planet in 30 years?
I’d like to see a really consolidated effort to move from fossil fuels to low carbon alternatives that are economically competitive, and I’d also like to see more hybrid cars on the road, if not electric.
What will your field of research look like in 2050?
It’s a really exciting time in climate modelling. We’ve started moving away from modelling individual regions over short time periods. In the future, we’ll be able to model the entire Earth at kilometre, or even sub-kilometre, resolution [the distance between the data points within the model] over long periods, which will hugely improve the accuracy of our climate predictions.