Research Interests
Prof. Kopp’s focuses on understanding uncertainty in past and future climate change, with major emphases on sea-level change, the interactions between physical climate change and the economy, and the use of climate risk information to inform decisionmaking. Key questions guiding his research include: (1) How has sea level changed in the geological and historical past, and how do ongoing changes compare to these past changes? (2) How may sea level change in the future in response to climate forcing? (3) How do climate and sea-level change impact the economy and human well-being? (4) How can climate and sea-level science more effectively support climate risk management under deep uncertainty?
Short History
Robert Kopp is a climate scientist who serves at Rutgers University as a Professor in the Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences and as Co-Director of the University Office of Climate Action. He also directs the Megalopolitan Coastal Transformation Hub, a National Science Foundation-funded consortium that advances coastal climate adaptation and the scientific understanding of natural and human coastal climate dynamics. He is also a director of the Climate Impact Lab, a multi-institutional collaboration of more than two dozen economists, data scientists, climate scientists, and policy experts, working to bring Big Data approaches to the assessment of the economic risks of climate change. Professor Kopp’s research focuses on understanding uncertainty in past and future climate change, with major emphases on sea-level change, the interactions between physical climate change and the economy, and the use of climate risk information to information decision-making. He has authored over 120 scientific papers, as well as popular articles in numerous venues. Professor Kopp is a lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 2021 Sixth Assessment Report and of the U.S. Global Change Research Program’s 2017 Fourth National Climate Assessment. Professor Kopp received his Ph.D. in Geobiology from the California Institute of Technology and his undergraduate degree in Geophysical Sciences from the University of Chicago. He is a fellow of the American Geophysical Union, a past Leopold Leadership Fellow, and a recipient of the American Geophysical Union’s James B. Macelwane medal.
Teaching Efforts
Undergraduate/Graduate
Building and Maintaining a Habitable Planet
Climate Change Risk Analysis
Previous Seminars
Graduate Seminar: Assessing and Governing Long-Term Risks
Joint Rutgers-Princeton Graduate Seminar: Geological Constraints on Climate Sensitivity
Rutgers SAS Honors Seminar: Energy in Nature and Society: From Earth’s Deep Past to Civilization’s Future
Graduate seminar on Major Transitions in the Evolution of the Global Carbon Cycle