Growing up, paleoclimatologist Alexander Farnsworth was fascinated by TV shows and movies about hurricanes, volcanoes, tornadoes—anything destructive. “I just wanted to know more about why these things happen,” he said.
In college, Farnsworth gravitated toward meteorology. Researching phenomena such as tropical cyclones allowed him to learn as well as travel while working on his master’s degree. As a Ph.D. candidate, Farnsworth spent several months in Ghana studying monsoon systems and exploring climate modeling.
Though his academic career has mostly focused on modern and future climates, as a senior research associate at the University of Bristol today, Farnsworth examines the climates of the past.
“I jokingly say that paleoclimate is more interesting than what’s going on now or in the future,” he said. “All these interesting things were happening that we want to try and understand.”
Farnsworth sees a connection between his work and the fictional worlds of books and movies. “I’ve always been a sci-fi and fantasy fan, so I love looking at crazy dystopian futures,” he said. “But there’s a part of me that’s always wondering, How realistic is that? Could that really happen? Is that feasible? And then I think, I’ve got a really cool climate model tool; I could use it to play a lot of what-if games to see if it’s possible.”
“When our science becomes more relatable to things people have a relationship with already, it comes to life.”
When the Game of Thrones series aired, Farnsworth and a colleague simulated the climate of the fictional world of Westeros to see how realistic it would be for a planet to have winters that last for years.
Farnsworth and colleagues also examined the climate of Arrakis, the inhospitable desert of the Dune universe, finding that the fictional planet would be habitable. The analysis may even suggest possibilities about life on desert exoplanets elsewhere in the galaxy.
Farnsworth’s models were used for the Apple TV+/BBC show Prehistoric Planet to give context about weather in the Cretaceous period. “How foggy was it off Antarctica on January 12, 66 million years ago?” he asked “That was an actual question they wanted to know!”
“When our science becomes more relatable to things people have a relationship with already, it comes to life,” Farnsworth said.
—Rebecca Owen (@beccapox), Science Writer
This profile is part of a special series in our August 2024 issue on science careers.
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