Posted by Betsy Ness-Edelstein | Nov 18, 2009 |
The Columbia Climate Center, in collaboration with the Columbia Water Center and the Lenfest Center for Sustainable Energy, invites you to attend “The National Academy of Engineering Grand Challenges: An Overview and Focus on Water,” on Tuesday, November 24 at 3 pm. The event will feature Charles Vest, President, National Academy of Engineering and President [...]
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Posted by Tristan Jones | Oct 6, 2009 |
In 2008 the world faced one of its most severe food crises in recent history. Around the world riots broke out in otherwise food-secure nations — places like Egypt, Russia, Mexico, and Brazil. The world’s governments responded — a major U.N. conference was held in Geneva. What they discussed there was the fundamental issue of [...]
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Posted by Francesco Fiondella | Aug 7, 2009 |
Forecasts by the International Research Institute for Climate and Society and other institutions show that a weak El Niño has developed in the equatorial Pacific, and is likely to continue evolving with warmer-than-normal conditions persisting there until early 2010. What exactly is this important climate phenomenon and why should society care about it? Who will [...]
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Posted by Mary-Elena Carr | Aug 6, 2009 |
Early last month, I attended a meeting on Abrupt Climate Change in a Warming World. Climate Matters @ Columbia has discussed abrupt climate change before, referring to the hydrologic cycle, and with regards to melting sea ice or permafrost.
Shifts in the earth climate are a known fact: crocodile-like reptiles lived in Greenland 55 million years [...]
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Posted by Cathy Vaughan | May 11, 2009 |
Researchers from across Columbia in early May at a faculty seminar entitled Climate Change, Public Policy, and Development. The event was jointly organized by the Institute of Latin American Studies (ILAS) and the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI). The purpose of the meeting was to explore ways in which Columbia University could [...]
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Posted by Katherine Regan | Mar 26, 2009 |
The Fifth World Water Forum in Istanbul, Turkey, ended this past Sunday, March 22. Held every three years, the Forum is organized by the World Water Council, an international multi-stakeholder platform designed to facilitate international cooperation on the management and use of water in an environmentally sustainable way. The Forum ended with the Istanbul Ministerial [...]
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Posted by Paul Block | Feb 2, 2009 |
Water capture and storage for irrigation has been an ongoing theme of research in Columbia’s earth and environmental engineering department, but Professor Upmanu Lall has recently taken things a step further. With funding from the Pulitzer family, Lall challenged a group of students in his senior engineering course to design a low-cost system of water [...]
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Posted by Yochanan Kushnir | Dec 19, 2008 |
The prospects of significant and damaging changes in the hydrological cycle due to the increase in atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations were raised in earlier IPCC reports and restated more strongly in the most recent, 2007 Fourth Assessment Report (AR4). Now, the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) issued its final Synthesis and Assessment Report on [...]
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Posted by Mary-Elena Carr | Dec 18, 2008 |
Yesterday the USGS released “Abrupt Climate Change, Final Report, Synthesis and Assessment Product 3.4” of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program and the Subcommittee on Global Change Research. You can download the four page brochure or the full report here. Columbia scientists Edward R. Cook (the lead author) and Richard Seager, both from Lamont-Doherty Earth [...]
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