CDS Professor Libby Barnes Applies AI to Climate Models of the Future
Excerpt from The Brink | By: Molly Glass | March 4, 2026 | Photo: Jackie Ricciardi
Anyone who’s been caught in a storm without an umbrella understands the importance of having reliable weather forecasts. The challenge is that these predictions rely on a vast—and constantly fluctuating—set of variables, including temperature, atmospheric pressure, humidity, wind, and precipitation. So for researchers such as Elizabeth “Libby” A. Barnes, Boston University’s inaugural Dalton Family Chair in Environmental Data Science & Sustainability, the application of artificial intelligence (AI)—and its ability to crunch vast amounts of data—to Earth science is a natural fit.
Together with her research group, Barnes’ focus is on understanding the Earth system—that is, how our planet’s air, water, land, ice, and many life-forms might influence each other and change across time and place—all to improve our prediction of climate and extreme weather on timescales from days to decades.
“Libby embodies what the Faculty of Computing & Data Sciences (CDS) was created to do,” says Azer Bestavros, Associate Provost for Computing and Data Sciences. “CDS is really not about computer science or data science or AI on their own—it’s about how they transform disciplines. In her work, Libby doesn’t see separate disciplines; she sees these all as tools for solving broad, complex problems. That’s the definition of convergent research.”