PLOS Climate PhD interview: Vidur Mithal

In the next instalment of our series of interviews with PhD students in climate research, PLOS Climate speaks to Vidur Mithal of the University of Hamburg and Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Germany.

What did you study before your PhD, and why did you decide to go on to do a PhD?

Like many climate scientists, my academic career began with an undergraduate degree in physics, which I enjoyed very much. At the same time, however, I was becoming interested in broadening my view of the world to understand complex environmental issues from several perspectives, which is why I decided to also pursue a minor in economics, and later an interdisciplinary master’s in climate science. During my master’s degree, I gained research experience through my master’s thesis and other projects I worked on as a research assistant. I enjoyed the work and environment so much that I decided I wanted to continue working in this area and pursue a PhD. I think what attracted me most was the opportunity to explore complex problems that are both scientifically interesting and societally relevant.

Could you tell us about your project? What are the key questions you’re hoping to address, and what methods/approaches are you using?

I am interested in understanding the impacts of climate extremes on global agricultural productivity. In particular, I study how changes in extreme events such as heatwaves and droughts will affect the occurrence of so-called crop failure events in the future. To do this, I use a combination of climate models and crop models, which can provide useful information on how the climate system will evolve under various socio-economic scenarios, and how this will affect yields of major crops worldwide, respectively. Since existing climate and crop models poorly capture extremes, a key aspect of my work is also to quantify the uncertainties associated with projections of future crop yield impacts and to identify key drivers of these impacts and uncertainties. Findings from this research could, for instance, inform effective adaptation of the agricultural food system to climate change.

What excites you most about your project, and about the wider field?

What I find exciting about my research and about the broader field of climate impacts research in general is its interdisciplinarity, and the opportunity it presents to work with people, datasets, and methods from across fields. In my research, for instance, I work with climate scientists, impact modelers, and agricultural scientists, among others. I am also excited about my project and field of research as it tackles societally-relevant questions and has the potential to inform policy and ensure that we are better prepared for the impacts of climate change, which was part of my original motivation for choosing to do research in this field to begin with.

What are you hoping to gain through the experience of doing a PhD? 

Through the experience of doing a PhD, I hope to strengthen my scientific skills, or, more specifically, the knowledge base and skillset needed to ask interesting societally-relevant scientific questions, develop and implement methods to address them, and draw and present robust conclusions. Research on a topic like climate change often involves thinking in terms of complexity, feedbacks, and uncertainty, and I also aim to further develop this way of thinking about complex scientific and societal issues. Finally, I hope to expand my network of both researchers and practitioners working at the intersection of climate science, climate impacts, and society.

What are your thoughts on the future of climate research? 

Climate science as an independent discipline is still relatively new, and the field is evolving quickly. On the one hand, there have been rapid advancements in our understanding of the physical processes driving the climate system and our abilities to model them, and, on the other, there is growing research on the implications of climate change for people, the economy, and society, and the connectedness of these impacts. In the future, I think that this will enable the modelling of the effects of humans on climate and vice versa at unprecedentedly granular spatial and temporal scales. I also think that in the future there will be more climate research at the intersection of science and practice, and that this will allow for insights from climate science to be utilized in a broader range of contexts. I hope that these advancements will strengthen efforts to both reduce carbon emissions to mitigate climate change and the development of strategies to help those most vulnerable adapt to its impacts.