In these weekly talks, scholars and leaders exchange ("xChange") new research and solutions for people and planet.

This week, Justin Mankin, an associate professor in the Department of Geography at Dartmouth, will dig into climate risk. 

How does climate change affect people and the things they value? Drawing on examples from violent conflict, economic growth, and water resources, I highlight my group’s research to inform society’s management of climate risks, with implications for everything from drought monitoring to climate liability. Our work looks retrospectively, documenting and attributing the impacts that have already unfolded, and prospectively, helping to anticipate the ones to come. Across all of this work, I discuss our efforts to (1) meaningfully connect geophysical changes with human consequences, (2) quantify, attribute, and constrain uncertainty, especially given structural data inequities, and (3) inform model design and analysis choices to ensure that scientific answers about our present and future are sound, transparent, reproducible, useful, and just. Collectively, my research and that of my group demonstrates the importance of science that spans both fundamental and applied questions of climate impacts to inform adaptations and prepare society for a warmer world.

Justin Mankin is an associate professor of geography at Dartmouth and director of the Climate Modeling & Impacts Group. His previous career was as an intelligence officer working in South Asia and the Middle East. He holds degrees from Columbia (BA, MPA), the London School of Economics (MSc), and Stanford (PhD).

For the best experience please join is in person, however a Zoom link is available.