Resources
This page presents some readings, datasets, and tools for the areas outlined in our paper, “Tackling Climate Change with Machine Learning.” These resources include general references about climate change, as well as resources organized by section of the paper.
If you find that we are missing some important resources, please submit them through this form!
0. General
For an overall introduction to the topic of climate change, we provide a (non-exhaustive) list of reports, academic papers, and conference proceedings below:
Background Reading
On the problem of climate change:
- Steffen, W., et al. Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene. (2018)
- Rockström, J., et al. A safe operating space for humanity. (2009)
- Lenton, T. M., et al. Tipping elements in the Earth’s climate system. (2008)
- Mann, M.E. et al. Global-scale temperature patterns and climate forcing over the past six centuries. (1998)
On how to tackle climate change:
- Davis, S.J., et al. Net-zero emissions energy systems. (2018)
- Geels, F. W., et al. Sociotechnical transitions for deep decarbonization. (2017)
- Creutzig, F.,, et al. Towards demand-side solutions for mitigating climate change. (2018)
- Sterner, T., et al. Policy design for the Anthropocene. (2019)
- Stern, N. The economics of climate change. (2008)
- High-Level Commission on Carbon Prices. Report of the High-Level Commission on Carbon Prices. (2017)
Interactive Resources
Related Initiatives
1. Electricity Systems
Background Reading
Papers and primers
Textbooks
- Von Meier, A. Electric Power Systems: A Conceptual Introduction. (2006)
- Wood, A.J. et al., Power Generation, Operation, and Control. (2013)
- Kirschen,D D.S., and Strbac, G. Fundamentals of Power System Economics, Volume 1 (2004).
Subtopic-specific resources:
- Nuclear fusion
- Accelerated science: coming soon
Datasets and Tools
General
- Energy Policy Simulator from Energy Innovation LLC
- Public Utility Data Liberation (PUDL) Project
- US independent system operators/regional transmission organizations (ISOs/RTOs): CAISO, ERCOT, ISO-NE, MISO, NYISO, PJM, and SPP
Variable Generation and Demand Forecasting
- Global Energy Forecasting Competition
- SubseasonalRodeo
- American Meteorological Society 2013-2014 Solar Energy Prediction Contest
- Rural Electricity Demand in India (REDI) Dataset
- Optimal Power Flow (OPF) Sampler Package
Accelerated Science for Materials
- The Materials Project
- Inorganic Crystal Structure Database
- SciFinder (paid)
- UCI Machine Learning Repository datasets, e.g. “Concrete Compressive Strength”
Reducing Life-cycle Fossil Fuel Emissions
- Global methane data
- Also see satellite imagery listings under low-data settings
Modeling Emissions
- US Environmental Protection Agency’s Continuous Emissions Monitoring data or ftp://newftp.epa.gov/DMDnLoad/emissions/
- ElectricityMap data source
Low-data Settings:
- High-resolution RGB satellite images (for visual predictions):
- Public
- Public, but permission needed for research use
- Commercial
- Multispectral satellite images (5-13 visible and infrared bands):
- Hyperspectral satellite images (up to a few hundred visible and infrared bands):
- See Table 1 of this survey of hyperspectral earth observation satellites for comparisons between sources.
- Public
Interactive Resources
- Greening the Grid toolkit
- Electric Power Systems online course (Coursera)
- PowerTAC testing platform
- Google Project Sunroof (detailed estimates of solar potential based on sunlight and roof space)
Events, Conferences and Journals
Major Conferences
- IEEE Power & Energy Society General Meeting
- Power Systems Computation Conference
- IEEE Power & Energy Society’s PowerTech
- Also see additional conferences by IEEE and the IEEE Power & Energy Society
Major Journals
Groups
2. Transportation
Background Reading
- IPCC AR5 Chapter on Transportation
- Creutzig, F. et al. Leveraging digitalization for sustainability in urban transport. (2019)
- Kaack L. et al. Decarbonizing intraregional freight systems with a focus on modal shift. 2018.
- Teter, J. et al. The Future of Trucks (2017)
Events, Conferences and Journals
- Transportation Research Board(conference and journal)
- International Transport Forum (inter-governmental organisation)
- International Transport Energy Modeling (iTEM) (convenes members from the transport-energy modelling community)
3. Buildings and Cities
Background Reading
IPCC Chapters
- Lucon, O. et. al Buildings (Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) (2014)
- Seto, K. et al. Human Settlements, Infrastructure and Spatial Planning (Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) (2014)
Academic perspectives
- Bai, X., et al. Six research priorities for cities and climate change. (2018)
- Seto, K C., et al. Sustainability in an urbanizing planet. (2017)
- Seto, K,C., et al. Carbon lock-in: types, causes, and policy implications. (2016)
- Nagendra, H,, et al. The urban south and the predicament of global sustainability. (2018)
- Hittinger, E,, and Jaramillo, P. Internet of Things: Energy boon or bane? (2019)
Journalistic perspectives
Datasets and Tools
Building Energy Use
- New York City municipal buildings for buildings over 10,000 square feet, identifying each building’s energy intensity, and available GHG emissions for the calendar years 2010-2014.
- The Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey (CBECS) is a national sample survey that collects information on the stock of U.S. commercial buildings, their energy-related building characteristics, and their energy consumption and expenditures.
City Metabolism
The “metabolism” of a city includes the electricity used, waste generated, and GHG emitted.
- Metabolism data for 150 cities is listed at https://metabolismofcities.org/resources/data/datasets.
- The China Emission Accounts & Datasets provides energy, emission and socio-economic accounting inventories for China https:/ceads.net.
- First attempts of global databases on cities emissions and relevant ancillary metrics include https://www.nature.com/articles/sdata2018280.
- The Carbon Disclosure Project provides a global platform for cities to measure and disclose environmental data; a variety of datasets are available at https://data.cdp.net.
Urban Land Use, Infrastructure Data
- OpenStreetMap is a cooperative alternative to Google Maps where all the data is open access.
- NYU’s Atlas of Urban Expansion contains historical data on 200 cities worldwide.
- Open 3D models are available for a few cities.
- The Urban Atlas of the European Union agency Copernicus includes information on urban land use types.
- The TABULA project combines data on building types across all of Europe.
4. Industry
Background Reading
- Rebitzer, G. et al. Intro to life-cycle analysis (2004)
- Gao, J. et al. Google’s white paper on ML for data center optimization
- Gustavsson, J. et al. Intro to food waste (2011)
- Wikipedia - Intro to Industry 4.0
Datasets and Tools
Accelerated Materials Science
- The Materials Project
- Inorganic Crystal Structure Database
- SciFinder (paid)
- UCI Machine Learning Repository datasets, e.g. “Concrete Compressive Strength”
Events, Conferences and Journals
5. Farms and Forests
Background Reading
Coming soon
Datasets and Tools
Kaggle:
Interactive Resources
6. CO2 Removal
Background Reading
- Committee on Developing a Research Agenda for Carbon Dioxide Removal and Reliable Sequestration et al. Negative Emissions Technologies and Reliable Sequestration: A Research Agenda (2018)
- Sandalow D. et al. Direct Air Capture of Carbon Dioxide: ICEF Roadmap 2018. (2018).
- Minx F. et. al. - Negative emissions – Parts 1, 2, 3 (2018)
- www.Carbon180.org
Events, Conferences and Journals
7. Climate Prediction
Background Reading
- Goosse H. et al. Online climate science textbook (2008-2010)
Datasets and Tools
The largest climate prediction datasets are ensembles of many climate simulations. These include simulations with varied physics, architectures, or initial conditions, and they are used to explore the range of possible climate futures. The largest ensembles include:
- The Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP)
- CMIP is associated with the Earth System Grid Federation, which also provides data analysis tools and tutorials: https://esgf.llnl.gov/
- The CESM Large Ensemble,
- Read about it in https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/BAMS-D-13-00255.1
- Google Cloud Weather and Climate Datasets
N.B. Climate model data is typically presented in netcdf4 format. These may be smoothly converted to csv files or pandas dataframes, but be aware that the data lies on irregular 3D spherical grids.
The Earth and climate science community is also working to create benchmark datasets: https://is-geo.org/benchmarks/
Events, Conferences and Journals
- The American Meteorological Society Committee on Artificial Intelligence
- Climate Informatics
- Intelligent Systems for Geosciences
Climate science is a journal field. Noteworthy research appears in journals such as the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Geophysical Research Letters and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Interactive Resources
8. Societal Impacts
Background Reading
General
- Quinn, J. et al. Computational sustainability and artificial intelligence in the developing world (2014).
- Gomes, C. et al., Computational sustainability: Computing for a better world and a sustainable future. (2019)
- Agrawal, A., and Perrin, N. Climate adaptation, local institutions and rural livelihoods. (2009)
- Shi, L. et al. Roadmap towards justice in urban climate adaptation research. (2016)
Ecology
- PLOS Collections - Ecological Impacts of Climate Change Collection
Infrastructure
- Kazmierczak, A., and Carter, J. Adaptation to climate change using green and blue infrastructure. A database of case studies. (2010).
Social Systems
- Burke, M., and Lobell, D. Food security and adaptation to climate change: What do we know? Climate change and food security (2010)
- Frontiers - Climate Change and Society Research Topic
Crisis
- Meier, P. Digital humanitarians: how big data is changing the face of humanitarian response. (2015)
- Anderson, G. B. et al. The future of climate epidemiology: opportunities for advancing health research in the context of climate change. (2019)
Datasets and Tools
Satellite imagery are used for ecological and social observation, and there are lists of publicly available datasets online. Here is one. For a satellite imagery dataset about food security specifically, consider this competition.
This competition describes an attempt to use mobile money effort to improve financial inclusion and resilience.
Improved disease surveillance and response is an important part of adaptation – here is one competition with this goal in mind.
Events, Conferences and Journals
9. Solar Geoengineering
Background Reading
- Harvard Project on Climate Agreements. Governance of the Deployment of Solar Geoengineering.
- An overview of the Earth system science of geoengineering
- Irvine, P.J. Towards a comprehensive climate impacts assessment of solar geoengineering (2016)
- MacMartin, D.G. and Kravitz, B. The engineering of climate engineering (2019)
Datasets and Tools
- The Geoengineering Model Intercomparison Project - is a good starting resource for digging into solar geoengineering simulations.
Events, Conferences and Journals
10. Tools for Individuals
Background Reading
Overall
- K. Williamson, A. Climate Change Needs Behavior Change: Making the case for behavioral solutions to reduce global warming. 2018.
Individual and Household Consumption
- Swan, L.J. et al., Modeling of end-use energy consumption in the residential sector: A review of modeling techniques. (2009)
- Jones, C.M. et al., Quantifying carbon footprint reduction opportunities for US households and communities. (2011)
- Remani, T. et. al., Residential load scheduling with renewable generation in the smart grid: A reinforcement learning approach. (2018)
Behavior Change
- Klenert, D. et al., Making carbon pricing work for citizens. (2018)
- Jones, C. et al., The future is now: reducing psychological distance to increase public engagement with climate change. (2017)
- Albert, A. and Maasoumy, M. Predictive segmentation of energy consumers. (2016)
Datasets and Tools
- Global Footprint Data
- Individual household electric power consumption Data Set, UCI ML repository
- Residential energy use survey results
- Commercial and Residential Hourly Load Profiles
- Buildings Performance Database, sample Residential data
Interactive Resources
- https://www.tmrow.com/ - Calculates impact of your climate behaviors by using ML to read your data
- https://www.watttime.org/ - Predicts marginal emissions cost of energy consumption in real time
11. Tools for Society
Background Reading
General
- Resources for Effective Climate Decisions. (Ch. 4) Informing an Effective Response to Climate Change. (2010)
- Dryzek, J.S. et al., Climate Change and Society: Approaches and Responses. (2011)
- Holt, R.F. et al., Assessment and Decision-making for Climate Change: An Overview of Four Approaches (2012)
- Adge, N.W., Social Capital, Collective Action, and Adaptation to Climate Change. (2003)
- Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Social, Economic, and Ethical Concepts and Methods. (Ch. 3). (2014)
Modeling Collective Behaviour
- Bruch, E., and Feinberg, F. Decision-Making Processes in Social Contexts. (2017)
- Jhangiani, R., and Tarry., H. Principles of Social Psychology. (2014)
- Diekert, F.K. The Tragedy of the Commons from a Game-Theoretic Perspective. (2012)
Policy Design
- World Health Organizaition. From Science to Policy: Developing Responses to Climate Change. (Ch. 12). Climate Change and Human Health - Risks and Responses. (1996)
- Roelich, K. and Giesekam, J. Decision making under uncertainty in climate change mitigation: introducing multiple actor motivations, agency and influence. (2018)
- Zambrano-Barragán, C. Decision Making and Climate Change Uncertainty: Setting the Foundations for Informed and Consistent Strategic Decisions. (2019)
- European Environmental Agency Climate change policies (2016)
Markets and Pricing
- Kolk, K., Pinkse, J. Market Strategies for Climate Change. (2004)
- Anderson, S.E. et al. The Critical Role of Markets in Climate Change Adaptation. (2018)
- Center for Climate and Energy Solutions. Market-based strategies. 2019.
Managing Tradeoffs
- Malakooti, B. Operations and Production Systems with Multiple Objectives 2014.
- Miettinen, K.M. et al., Nonlinear Multiobjective Optimization (2004)
- Hamarat, C., et al. An exploratory approach for adaptive policymaking by using multi-objective robust optimization (2014)
Datasets and Tools
Datasets
- World Bank ClimateSmart data portal
- Environmental Treaty Status Data Set, 2012 Release (1940–2012)
- Vulnerability to Climate Change Dataset
- CO2 “price” in European ETS (European Union Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) data from EUTL)
- IPCC Socio-Economic Baseline Data, v1 (1980, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 2025)
- IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) Observed Climate Change Impacts, v1 (1970–2004)](https://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/data/set/ipcc-ar4-observed-climate-impacts)
Software
- Carbon market simulation tool
- Python packages for multi-objective optimization:
- Matlab package for multi-objective optimization
Interactive Resources
- Policy Guide on Climate Change
- New York Times interactive website for managing global tradeoffs related to climate
- Web portal with information on many socioeconomic climate datasets
Games
- In-person role-playing games for societal planning related to climate change
- Role-playing video game for groups which simulates the UN climate change negotiations
- Global strategy video game
- Tragedy of the Commons flash game
- Carbon trading game night using CarbonSim
Events, Conferences and Journals
12. Education
Background Reading
- Nkambou, et al., Advances In Intelligent Tutoring Systems (2010)
- Pinkwart, N. Another 25 Years of AIED? Challenges and Opportunities for Intelligent Educational Technologies Of The Future (2016)
- UNESCO Not Just Hot Air: Putting Climate Change Education Into Practice (2015)
Datasets and Tools
Datasets
- Datashop
- User Knowledge Modeling Data (Students’ Knowledge Levels on DC Electrical Machines) Data Set
- University of Michigan source code and data associated with Practical Learning Analytics course
Tools
Interactive Resources
Events, Conferences and Journals
13. Finance
Background Reading
- Boissinot, J., et al., Finance and climate: The transition to a low-carbon and climate-resilient economy from a financial sector perspective. (2016)
- Battiston, B., et al., A climate stress-test of the financial system. (2017)
- Campiglio, E. Climate change challenges for central banks and financial regulators (2018)
Datasets and Tools
Datasets
Datasets are fairly limited in terms of data quantity (i.e. no single dataset would be enough to implement an ML system), but merging different sources of data together can yield interesting insights.
- United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Climate Finance Data Portal
- OECD Development finance data
- Global Financial Development Database
- Inter-American Development Bank Climate Finance 2017 Dataset
Tools
- ClimateScope: a country-by-country assessment that provides an interactive report and index indicating suitability for climate-related investment
- Renewable Energy (RE) Data Explorer (to inform vital renewable energy investment and deployment decisions
Interactive Resources
- World Bank Group - Climate Finance: Innovative Approaches in Supporting Climate Action
- Imperial College London - Climate Change: Financial Risks and Opportunities
- UN Climate Change E-Learn - Introduction to Sustainable Finance