Pritzker Scientist Brings Cloud and Climate Science

Dr. Elisabeth Moyer spent a day at the school to expose students to atmospheric science and energy transitions over time.

As Parker’s 19th Annual Robert A. Pritzker Visiting Scientist•Inventor•Engineer in Residence, Dr. Moyer shared her expertise with students in small-classroom and assembly settings and with the greater community through a public lecture.

Dr. Moyer is a professor in the Department of the Geophysical Sciences and director of the PIRE-Cirrus international research and training program at the University of Chicago. Her research interests include experimental atmospheric science—measurements from high-altitude aircrafts to study water transport and cloud formation—as well as studies of the climate and human response to greenhouse-gas forcing and the history and policy of human energy use.

She has been the director of the Center for Robust Decision-making on Climate and Energy Policy (RDCEP) and of the Data Science in Energy and Environmental Research (DSEER) training program, and she runs a longstanding program bringing experiential science education to K–12 students across Chicago. She has undergraduate degrees in physics and archaeology from Stanford and a PhD in planetary science from the California Institute of Technology.

Dr. Moyer spoke with Upper School students in the Climate Change and Environmental Justice class about her work leading a team of researchers to build highly specialized instruments to take measurements of water vapor in the uppermost reaches of the Earth’s atmosphere. She noted the challenges—scientific, environmental and political—that she and other scientists face together to do their work.

In her Morning Ex with Middle and Upper School students, Dr. Moyer focused on the important role of clouds and atmosphere in our climate. She helped students understand that our atmosphere makes our planet different from the moon, and water further complicates the comparison. Dr. Moyer shared that clouds can both warm and cool the Earth depending on various conditions, and clouds are the biggest uncertainty for understanding the details of climate change. 

Her work involves studying the highest clouds in the sky to better understand how deep convective storms carry water to very high altitudes in the form of ice particles. She showed photos of specialized aircraft from the 1960s used as “labs in the sky” and detailed the process whereby she and her team affix specific instruments that they design and build to the outside of these planes to collect data from water vapor collected on special flights. The extreme conditions often render their instrumentation useless, requiring patience and substantial iteration on her team’s behalf.

In her public lecture that night, Dr. Moyer led the audience in exploring the interconnected nature of energy—including a student demonstration of the amount of physical energy required each second to power a lightbulb. She integrated history into her presentation, outlining her work from The University of Chicago Mapping Energy History project charting the history of U.S. energy use and the infrastructure that enabled that use. Dr. Moyer then led those in attendance through an overview of the seven sectoral energy transitions, indicating that we are currently in the middle of another transition in the electric sector, away from coal.

Enjoy photos from Dr. Moyer’s visit to the school here or take in the evening lecture below.