The group traveled by boat, motorcycle and finally by foot through the forest to reach cliffs where burials lay. At one site, 20 feet off the forest floor was a ledge protected by an overhang, where lay a row hollowed-out logs, along with ceramic jars.
Join Richard Leakey, Peter deMenocal and others for a look at how changes in East Africa’s climate over the past 5 million years may have influenced human evolution.
A study published earlier this month indicated that due to manmade emissions of carbon dioxide, the earth’s oceans are tipping toward acidity faster than at any time in the last 300 million years. It made world headlines, and this week the study was the subject of Sunday New York Times editorial, “Changing the Chemistry of Earth’s Oceans.” And now, the poem. [...]
The results are in for the first study to systematically measure the effects of the city’s fledgling effort to introduce more reflective rooftops in order to reduce cooling costs and the overall heat burden on the city.
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Climate scientists at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science this week were elated to hear that the United States and five other countries had agreed to work toward cutting pollutants other than carbon dioxide thought to cause about a third of current human-influenced global warming. After all, many of them [...]
Increased growing-season heat due to climate change in coming decades could push staple U.S. crops off a cliff, and cause world food prices to jump, a Columbia University economist told a press briefing at a top scientific meeting this week. In a panel organized by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, economist Wolfram [...]
With 7 billion people on the planet and some 40 percent of earth’s land surface already covered with croplands and pastures, the only remaining frontiers for agricultural expansion are dwindling tropical forests. Some see high-yield industrial-scale farming as a way to take the pressure off; the theory goes that if more produce can be grown [...]
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Scientists often invoke climate as a possible factor in human evolution; but only recently have they developed the ability to get enough information about past climates and related fossil evidence to see any details. A half-dozen leading paleontologists and climate scientists discussed recent advances in a symposium this week at the annual meeting of the [...]
Since 2005, the Educational Global Climate Modeling Project has been downloaded 50,000 times, and adopted for teaching and research at hundreds of universities and other institutions.
[Last updated: May 7, 2012] Journalists may join Earth Institute research field expeditions, which take place on every continent and every ocean. Below: selected projects, in rough chronological order. (Work in and around New York listed separately at bottom.) While in the field, researchers may be available by phone or email, depending on site. Some [...]
State of the Planet is a forum for discussion on varying viewpoints. The opinions expressed by the authors and those providing comments are theirs alone, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Earth Institute or Columbia University.
