Peter Kalmus (climate scientist)


Peter Kalmus is a climate scientist, writer and climate activist based in Altadena, California. He is a data scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory as an Associate Project Scientist at UCLA’s Joint Institute for Regional Earth System Science & Engineering. In addition to his scientific work, he is the author of the award winning book, "Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution". A documentary by the same title complements the book. In addition to authoring articles about climate change, he is the founder of the website noflyclimatesci.org and co-founder of the app Earth Hero: Climate Change.

Education and early career

Kalmus attended Harvard University, where he received his Bachelor of Science degree in physics in 1997. At Harvard, he used Fourier-transform spectrometry to discover and categorize the quantum-mechanical rotational spectra of several cyanopolyynes which were subsequently found in interstellar clouds. He then taught high school physics in Massachusetts and wrote software in New York City. In 2004 he enrolled in graduate school at Columbia University and received his PhD in physics in 2008. His PhD work involved searching for gravitational waves as a member of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration. He continued his work with LIGO as a Postdoctoral Scholar at the California Institute of Technology, leading major full-collaboration searches for gravitational waves from magnetars, gamma ray bursts and supernovae and contributing to the precise calibration of the world's gravitational wave observatories.

Research

Kalmus’s research centers on cloud physics, specifically improving basic understanding of marine stratocumulus clouds and severe convective weather such as tornadoes with the goal of improving projections of how these phenomena will change as the planet heats, using remote sensing data, in situ data, and models. Marine stratocumulus clouds reflect incoming sunlight, cooling the planet, and are difficult to model accurately in climate models; this makes them a major source of uncertainty in climate projections.
A common thread in his research is improving the utility of satellite observations of the Earth. His work on severe weather unlocks the potential of polar orbiting satellites to observe rapidly changing convective environments by using air parcel trajectory modeling to span the temporal gap between satellite overpass and convective initiation. He has used in situ data from a ship-based campaign to bias-correct the CloudSat warm rain retrieval. He also uses in situ data to validate retrievals from the AIRS instrument on the Aqua.
Recently, Kalmus has begun to work in the nascent field of Ecological forecasting. He is the principal investigator on a NASA grant to study the projected future of the world's coral reefs with greater accuracy and higher resolution. Coral reefs are rapidly succumbing to ocean heat waves and ocean acidification.
He has authored over 100 peer-reviewed scientific articles in physics and Earth science.

Public engagement

Kalmus is an internationally recognized science communicator whose efforts center on shifting culture away from fossil fuel acceptability. He tweets as @ClimateHuman and is one of the top 20 most-followed climate scientists on Twitter. He focuses in particular on encouraging the earth science and other academic communities to speak out with greater urgency on the need for climate action.
He has been featured in many media outlets, including Mother Jones, PRI's "The World", CBC Radio, Deutsche Welle, Buzzfeed, The Intercept, and Quartz, and most often speaks to the need for an immediate and massive climate mobilization and how individuals can “vote” for this mobilization through their actions, via both activism and emissions reduction. He frequently speaks to the need for a carbon fee and dividend policy as part of the mobilization, in which fossil fuel becomes increasingly costly as the carbon fee rises every year and 100% of the net revenue is returned equitably to the people, making the policy fiscally progressive.
Kalmus lives on approximately 1/10th the fossil fuel of the average American. He says this has made his life more satisfying and meaningful. In 2010, Kalmus realized the flying in planes accounted for roughly 3/4 of his greenhouse gas emissions, and he has not flown on a plane since 2012. Kalmus believes that anyone can contribute to cultural shift by conspicuously modeling the change that needs to happen. He has stated that by “walking the talk” his advocacy has become more effective.
Kalmus is a columnist and regular contributor at YES! Magazine. His writing has also appeared in The Guardian, Eos, the Washington Post, and Grist.
On September 14, 2019, Kalmus tweeted “Never give up” and referenced his latest article, “How to live with the climate crisis without becoming a nihilist”.

Flying Less movement

Kalmus is the founder of the website noflyclimatesci.org and a leading voice in the #FlyingLess movement. He is pushing for the American Geophysical Union to support earth scientists who choose to fly less out of climate concerns, with remote participation options at conferences.

School strike for climate

Kalmus was a lead organizer on two letters in support of school striking youth, one from US Earth scientists and one from international scholars. His two sons have been regularly school striking on Fridays since 2018 as part of the Fridays for Future movement.

Earth Hero

To help users' track carbon emissions, Kalmus co-founded the smart phone app Earth Hero to help users reduce their emissions, shift the culture with their reductions, and then helps them engage in other forms of climate activism such as protest and civil disobedience.

Awards and recognition

Kalmus has won numerous awards both for his science and activism. He received the NASA Early Career Achievement Medal and three Jet Propulsion Laboratory Voyager Awards for his work in Earth science. He is also a recipient of the inaugural Transition US Walking the Talk award. He is a 2018 “Grist 50” fellow, one of the ten 2018 fellows classified as “Visionaries”.
His book, Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution won the IPPY Outstanding Book of the Year Award, the Nautilus Book Award, and the Foreword Indies Book Award.