Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic, and Space Sciences, College of Engineering, University of Michigan

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The Master of Engineering Degree in Applied Climate

Forest fireForest fire (PHOTO CREDIT: Weather Stock photo from the National Extreme weather Report, 2010)
TornadoTornado (PHOTO CREDIT: NOAA photo library - http://www.flickr.com/photos/noaaphotolib/sets/72157625053846454/ )
DroughtDrought (PHOTO CREDIT: Weather Stock photo from the National Extreme Weather Report, 2010)

Program Overview

The AOSS MEng in Applied Climate, effectively a subset of the broad discipline of environmental engineering, is a professional degree designed for students whose interests lie in applying a basic understanding of climate science to engineered solutions requiring:

  • Adaptation to intensities and frequencies of extremes of weather associated with regional climate change, and
  • Mitigation of regional and global climate change through actions such as altered emission of short- and long-lived radiatively active gases and aerosols.

Graduates’ Career Opportunities

Graduates of this program will find careers in diverse settings including: 

  1. Federal, state, and local government agencies that are tasked with: monitoring air quality, developing and implementing of climate action plans, issuing permits, planning for agricultural and commercial land-use, and planning for infrastructure development;
  2. Industries and businesses whose activities: are influenced by consideration of climate change and climate change policy, impact local or regional air quality (including carbon dioxide emissions), or whose investment and facility decisions might be influenced by changes in regional climate;
  3. Non-government organizations whose interests require knowledge of current and future climate change, for example forest and water management of development of regional tourism, and
  4. Civil and environmental engineering firms that specialize in designing and developing planned communities, transportation and shipping systems, harbor facilities, or major energy infrastructures (e.g., hydroelectric dams, nuclear plants, and wind farms). 

The Applied Climate Engineer will be employed where good engineering design must include concern for current and future climate and its associated extremes of weather.

Ways of climate information being processed, filtered, and combined with other information in the decision process Ways of climate information being processed, filtered, and combined with other information in the decision process (CREDIT: Cohen and Waddell, 2008.)