NYU Earth Systems Institute Launches at Climate Week NYC

From simulating ocean currents with Artificial Intelligence (AI) to explaining why parts of Africa have grown greener, data-driven research is changing how scientists understand a warming planet. At NYU, that work now has a dedicated home.

NYU's Earth Systems Institute (ESI) made its public debut on September 21 as part of Climate Week NYC, gathering faculty, students, and partners from industry and philanthropy for an afternoon of research talks and conversation.

With Sonali McDermid, an associate professor in NYU's Department of Environmental Studies and ESI co-deputy director, as emcee, the program moved from an overview of the Institute to three faculty speed talks, an open Q&A, and a panel of experts.

The Earth Systems Institute is one of the new research institutes launched by NYU's Office of Global Science and Technology (GST); it brings data-driven Earth system science to the problem of environmental change. Its researchers use AI and computational tools to improve projections of the Earth system and to strengthen the resilience of food, water, and energy systems. The Institute draws on mathematical and computational research at the Courant Institute School of Mathematics, Computing, and Data Science, engineering at NYU Tandon School of Engineering, and policy-connected food and environmental science at NYU Arts & Science. Together, these groups study how a changing climate cascades across the oceans, atmosphere, and landscapes, to inform economic, conservation, and policy decisions.

NYU Global Science and Technology Vice President for Strategic Partnerships Eric Vieira described ESI’s role as connecting expertise across NYU's schools and engaging partners in industry, government, philanthropy, nonprofits, and other universities. Vieira emphasized that "Today is more than the launch of another institute, it is an invitation."

That invitation comes with a clear mission. As Laure Zanna, director of NYU Earth Systems Institute and Keller Professor of Applied Mathematics at the NYU Courant Institute School of Mathematics, Computing, and Data Science, explained, the goal is to build data-driven models that help us understand and predict climate change, put those models in the hands of decision-makers, and use them to build solutions for planetary resilience.

The Institute draws on more than 40 scientists, 20 labs, and 15 partnerships, organized around four pillars: AI-powered climate models, land and food systems, infrastructure resilience, and open-source climate data for decision-makers. For Zanna, that last pillar captures what has changed. She explained that "pretty much anyone in this room can have access to the data, the model and can ask the question, and anyone outside this room is also able to decide which question they want to ask."

Faster models for a changing ocean

The first talk showed how AI can speed up one of climate science's slowest tasks. Carlos Fernandez-Granda, associate professor of mathematics and data science at the NYU Courant Institute School of Mathematics, Computing, and Data Science, presented Samudra, an AI model of the ocean.

Traditional ocean models solve physics equations step by step and require supercomputers: even on more than 4,500 processors, they simulate only about 12 years of ocean per day. Samudra is an emulator, a neural network that learns from decades of that model output to predict how the ocean will evolve. Through a collaboration with NVIDIA, it can simulate 4,000 years in 24 hours on a single Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) while still reproducing patterns like El Niño. That speed is a step toward exploring far more climate scenarios than is possible today.

Why the Sahel turned green

Professor Alessandra Giannini, chair of the Department of Environmental Studies at Arts & Science, brought the conversation to the land. After severe droughts in the 1970s and 1980s, scientists expected the Sahel, on the southern edge of the Sahara, to slide into desertification.

Instead, satellites showed it greening as rainfall recovered. The droughts had been blamed on misuse of land, but Giannini demonstrated that distant ocean temperatures, shaped by greenhouse gases and aerosol pollution, drove the Sahel's wet and dry decades. "[It] had nothing to do with land surface, it had everything to do with sea surface," Giannini explained. She closed the talk with soil and water conservation projects in Senegal and Ethiopia that have helped restore landscapes and food security.

What electrified homes mean for the grid

Dharik Mallapragada, assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at NYU Tandon School of Engineering, turned to the energy systems climate goals depend on, and examined what happens to the power grid as homes switch to electric heating.

The key idea is peak demand: a grid must be built for its single busiest hour, not its average day. Modeling every residential building in New England, his team found that electrification changes when that hour falls.

Pairing electrification with energy efficiency, he showed, lowers those peaks and softens swings in weather. His group now works with NYU School of Law's Institute for Policy Integrity to better understand natural gas demand.

The Path Ahead for NYU’s Earth Systems Institute

The afternoon closed with a panel moderated by Miguel Modestino, ESI's other co-deputy director, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, and director of the Sustainable Engineering Initiative at NYU Tandon School of Engineering. The panel gathered speakers from Schmidt Sciences, NVIDIA, National Grid, and NYU's Urban Systems Lab.

The panel’s theme was turning climate science into decisions. That is the question the NYU Earth Systems Institute now has to address in practice. A fellowship supported by the Simons Foundation, a Distinguished Visitor Program, and a spring summit are planned for the year ahead, and they are the Institute’s first steps toward answering it.

“The Earth Systems Institute exemplifies NYU’s commitment to spearheading multidisciplinary and pioneering research to meet the challenges of our time,” said Nina Gray, NYU’s interim vice provost for research. “By bringing together expertise from across the university and beyond, ESI and other initiatives will turn research breakthroughs into actionable solutions.”

About NYU Global Science and Technology NYU Global Science and Technology connects expertise across the University's schools, campuses, and global sites, and builds the partnerships that carry scientific work from discovery into use. Led by Executive Vice President Juan de Pablo, the office supports institutes working across quantum science, health, climate, artificial intelligence, and entrepreneurship, and works to make NYU one of the world's preeminent institutions for science and technology.

About NYU's Office of the Vice Provost for Research NYU’s Office of the Vice Provost for Research oversees the university’s global research strategy and policies, manages sponsored research and compliance, advances research innovation and partnerships, and supports the translation of discoveries into real-world benefits. Its Office of Research Development promotes NYU research and sponsored programs through seed grants and a portfolio of services that enhance the competitiveness of proposals for external funding.