Carnegie Mellon's Department of Engineering and Public Policy will receive $6.9 million over the next five years from the National Science Foundation to fund the new ClimateDecisionMakingCenter.

Granger Morgan, the EPP department head, will be the director of the new Center.

"[Climate Change] is when we burn coal, natural gas, and oils, and release carbon dioxide into the air; adding to the gases that are already there. If we substantially increase the amount of carbon dioxide the heat will build up in the atmosphere," Morgan says.

Climate change, better known as global warming, is an international issue that affects day to day weather and the environment. Symptoms of climate change include harsher winters and hotter summers, while also contributing to rising sea levels and increasingly dangerous hurricanes.

"The Engineering and Public Policy department has been working a long time with the issue of climate change. We're now the host and anchor for the research on the issue for other Universities," Morgan says.

It is debatable whether climate change is caused by humans or is a product of nature.

The Center would like to set the human factor aside and address the future of climate change. The Center seeks to determine what will happen in the future of climate change in order to aid in decision-making by public and private organizations.

The ClimateDecisionMakingCenter will also include researchers at other universities, such as StanfordUniversity, the University of British Columbia, and the University of California at Berkeley.