Climate Informed Engineering: An Essential Pillar of Industry 4.0 Transformation

Breakthroughs in computing have led to development of new generations of Earth Systems Models providing detailed information on how our planet may locally respond to the ongoing global warming. Access to such climate information systems presents an unprecedented opportunity for engineers to make tangible contributions to climate adaptation through integration of climate information in their products, designs, and services. We introduce the concept of “Climate Informed Engineering” (CIE) as an emerging interdisciplinary field integrating climatic considerations in engineering products and services. The concept behind CIE is to enable engineers to build infrastructure, devices, sensors or develop new materials and processes that are informed by climate and climate change information. We believe CIE will be an increasingly important dimension of Engineering Science resonating with engineers and scientists with different backgrounds.