Some 40 million people depend on the Colorado River Basin for water but warmer weather from rising greenhouse gas levels and a growing population may signal water shortages ahead.
Category: Water
A River Runs Through It: Predicting Floods in the Midwest
Focusing on the American Midwest, Andrew Robertson analyzes the relationships between floods, weather and climate patters throughout the 20th century.
Clues from Last Ice Age May Hint at Drying Ahead for Some Regions
In the spectacular collapse of ice sheets as the last ice age ended about 18,000 years ago scientists hope to find clues for what regions may grow drier from human caused global warming. In a talk Thursday at the American Geophysical Union’s annual meeting, Aaron Putnam, a postdoctoral scholar at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, painted a picture of earth’s dramatic transformation as seen in climate records extracted from ancient cave formations, ice cores, lake shorelines and glacial moraines.
Improving the Water Outlook in the Himalayas
Andrew Robertson, a climate scientist at the International Research Institute for Climate and Society, discusses his research on helping reservoir managers in northern India make better planning decisions by improving their ability to predict how climate change will influence water availability.
If You’re Not Going to San Francisco
Keep an eye on State of the Planet over the next week for updates on the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union.
Frozen Water on Mercury, NASA Confirms
Mercury, the planet closest to the Sun, may hold at least 100 billion tons of ice in permanently shaded craters near its north pole, NASA scientists announced Thursday. The findings come as NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft nears its second year of orbit around Mercury. MESSENGER’s lead investigator, Sean Solomon, is director of Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.
Tree Rings to Investigate Chimborazo’s Past Climate
The landscape around Chimborazo resembles the high desert in parts of the western United States. The terrain approaching Chimborazo is arid and rocky in appearance, with mostly small grassy and shrub-like vegetation growing on it. Finding trees large enough to sample above 4000 meters was, needless to say, a bit of a challenge, but they do exist.
Putting Up Weather Station Chimborazo
Changes in glacier mass will have significant social and economic consequences for cities around Chimborazo and I’m hoping the specially built weather station will shed more light on the climate factors contributing to glacier loss.
After Sandy, Testing the Waters
During Hurricane Sandy the seas rose a record 14-feet in lower Manhattan. Water flooded city streets, subways, tunnels and even sewage treatment plants. It is unclear how much sewage may have been released as plants lost power or were forced to divert untreated wastewater into the Hudson River. Four days after Sandy, the environmental group [...]
Cotopaxi Skies
Because of Cotopaxi’s almost perfectly conic shape, the climb appears be a straight line to the top. It isn’t. In fact, the climb winds past spires of ice and vast blue crevasses the size of small canyons. Cotopaxi is a beautiful mountain.
