The ice in this valley is moving towards the coast

Michael Studinger, Instrument Co-Principal Investigator, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory:

PUNTA ARENAS, Chile–The weather forecast for our survey over the Larsen C Ice Shelf looks good. Given the difficult weather over the past couple of days this is a welcome change. After studying satellite images and computer models and talking to the meteorologist at the Punta Arenas airport we decide to fly. We will follow the flow of ice from Antarctica’s interior to the ocean where the ice breaks into icebergs and eventually melts.

The flight will take us through an almost complete tour of the Antarctic cryosphere. Our tour begins over the small ice caps of the Antarctic Peninsula. The snow and ice that forms these ice caps eventually flows downhill through steep valleys, reaching glaciers and ice streams.

Glaciers flowing down steep valleys transport ice from the interior of Antarctica to the Larsen Ice Shelf near the coast

I am seated in the cockpit behind our two pilots to get a better view of the scenery. We are descending into a steep valley filled with ice on its way to the remnants of the Larsen B Ice Shelf that broke apart a few years ago. The ice here forms a huge floating surface that appears endless. Warm seawater lies below the ice; we are here to study how it melts the ice shelf.

The ice flowing into the valleys is pushing the ice shelves away.  Eventually huge ice chunks break off to form icebergs. Our next survey line takes us to the edge of the ice shelf where several gigantic icebergs can be seen floating in the distance, along with pools of open water. After crisscrossing what’s left of Larsen C we head back to the crest of the Antarctic Peninsula and repeat a different survey line. Each time I look out of the window I see a breathtaking but fragile landscape.

Our tour ends at the edge of Larsen C Ice, where sea ice meets open water.

Heading home.

The topics of Sachs’ lectures have varied over the years, but his message remains consistent. He presents a vision of a sustainable world and calls for students to get involved. “It will be your homework assignment to clean up this mess,” he told students in his 2007 address.

Last year’s lecture focused on the Millennium Villages project, a partnership between the Earth Institute, Millennium Promise and the UN Development Program to equip the world’s most impoverished people with the knowledge and tools they need for sustainable living. “Often there are tremendously powerful solutions at hand,” says Sachs, “which nonetheless—and despite their low cost—fail to reach the poor who would benefit from them.”

In Sachs’s 2007 lecture on achieving international peace through sustainable development, he discussed the importance of sustainable development in preventing future global conflict, suggesting that reckless growth and the exploitation of resources are the underlying causes of many of the conflicts that create social insecurity. He lamented that many nations still consider war as a solution, saying “If we continue with the mindset that our world is destined for war, we will destroy everything, and while the odds are small of that, they’re growing.”

In 2006, Sachs spoke about practical approaches to climate change. “There is no solution unless it is global,” he said. Sachs discussed the challenges of translating science into effective policy and the importance of broad public understanding and international cooperation.

We invite you to learn more and register for “Choices for America’s Economic Future.”

Columbia University’s Earth Institute and the School of Continuing Education are pleased to announce a new Master of Science program which, pending approval by the University Senate, will admit its first class beginning in fall 2010.

The M.S. in Sustainability Management is a brand new program that will formally train and educate sustainability practitioners in a wide range of fields. It will draw upon sophisticated environmental measurement tools and cutting edge environmental science to help students fully understand the systematic and organizational role of sustainability in any organization.

The program is ideal for professionals currently working in or aspiring to be in management positions in general organizational management, regulatory compliance, facilities operations, and environmental stewardship. It is an innovative program that is applicable to many fields including the growing field of sustainability management, risk and environment management, financial services, utilities, industrial manufacturing, energy, pharmaceuticals, academia, health care, media, transportation, food service, and technology, among others. The M.S. in Sustainability Management program may be taken on a part-time or full-time basis.

In response to the increasing global challenges all organizations face, from limiting their carbon emissions to managing their water resources, the program melds academic leadership, scientific rigor, and professional practice to form a unique interdisciplinary community dedicated to making lasting advances in global sustainability practice.

Our upcoming information session is the perfect opportunity to meet the faculty and learn more about the program.

Date: Thursday, November 19
Time: 6:00 p.m.
Location: The Hilton Times Square Hotel
RSVP: Register Here

Nick Frearson, Gravimeter Instrument Team, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory:

PUNTA ARENAS, Chile–Not all rides in the DC-8 are smooth and effortless. Our flight down the Thwaites Glacier was a race against weather, with the stomach-churning quality of a carnival ride. Both the Thwaites and Pine Island glaciers flow into the Amundsen Sea. This section of Antarctica, along the western coastline just below the continent’s peninsular arm, has been an intense focus of the ICE Bridge mission.

Icebergs that have broken off Thwaites Glacier might look like stepping stones in this image, but up close these icebergs loom approximately 100 feet above the water. The open water around the icebergs can remain open throughout austral summer, yet just beyond, the sea ice remains as far as you can see.

A photo of Mt. Murphy, an 8 million year old shield volcano rising some 1,800 meters above the ice sheet.

Mt. Murphy was visible as we flew over Pine Island Glacier and its grounding line, the point where the glacier transitions from land to sea. We flew just inland of the grounding line to measure the glacier’s ice surface elevation with the ATM laser and the ice depth with the radar. These measurements will tell us how much ice is crossing the grounding line.

We had been given old area maps for guidance as we flew over the ice. It was startling to see bays with floating ice-shelves on the map now appear as open water. One bay over from Pine Island, an ice shelf appeared to have almost completely disappeared; what had once jutted prominently into the sea was now a thin ribbon of bright white glued tightly to the coastline. The wind had long since blown away any vestige of the old ice-shelf . Flying over this ‘ghost’ ice shelf is a reminder of the rapid changes taking place here.

WPD has organized a Global Pneumonia Summit of over 100 media representatives, scientists, political leaders, donors, and public health organizations in New York City, a national press conference on pneumonia in Bangladesh, a ‘Run for Child Survival’ in Kenya, a film screening in Baltimore, a launch of a new pneumonia treatment policy in Uganda, and much more.

Every 15 seconds, a child dies from pneumonia. Of the four million lives claimed by it every year, two million are children under the age of five. Of these two million children who die from pneumonia annually, an estimated 98% live in developing countries.

Pneumonia, an infection of the lungs that causes coughing, fever, and difficulty breathing, is often caused by bacteria (such as Hib and pneumococcus), viruses, and fungi. Elderly adults and children under five, especially those in developing countries can be extremely susceptible to it. Pneumonia also causes stress extreme financial burden for families who struggle to find ways to finance hospital stays, transportation, and other costs.

To prevent the disease, WPD is advocating for more accessible vaccinations, particularly those for the measles, pertussis (whooping cough), Hib, and pneumococcus. Zinc supplementation and antibiotics can also be used as preventative measures. Protecting children against pneumonia can be done through hand-washing, providing adequate nutrition, exclusively breast-feeding them for the first six months of life, improving prenatal care to reduce low birth weight, and reducing indoor air pollution. For those children already afflicted with pneumonia, WPD supports better case management in diagnosis and treatment, training of community health workers (especially in areas that lack easy access to health care centers), resources for antibiotics and oxygen therapy, as well as better tools, such as chest-x-rays and lab tests, to properly diagnose pneumonia in a timely manner.

www.worldpneumoniaday.org or World Pneumonia Day on Facebook.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Skimming over sea ice in the Weddell Sea, Antarctica

Nick Frearson, Gravimeter Instrument Team, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory:

PUNTA ARENAS, Chile–Skimming across the Weddell Sea at 250 miles per hour I am finally on the way to Antarctica. Even though my visit to the white continent will be at a height of 1500 ft I still feel a sense of ‘homecoming’, as if I am back for a field season on the peninsula.

Sea ice is the target today, measuring sea ice thickness and cover. Peering out the plane window I am amazed at the beauty of the sea ice - large clean slabs of reflective white. I can feel the pull, the same magnetism that must have affected the early polar explorers bringing them back again and again.

The Weddell Sea and Antarctic exploration are linked in history. The image of Ernest Shackleton’s ship, The Endurance, caught in an ice pack in the Weddell Sea is perhaps the most iconic of this area. Shackleton’s 1914 Trans-Antarctic Expedition was intended to be a march across the continent from the Weddell Sea coast through the South Pole and ending at the Ross Sea. The Endurance was crushed by the Weddell Sea ice, never reaching the coast to launch Shackelton and his men on their intended journey. Would Shackleton face the same fate if he were to set out today? Would the ice pack in the Weddell Sea close in with the same ferocity capturing his ship?

Check this link to see how Columbia scientists have looked at the role weather played a century ago in both Shackleton and Nansen’s explorations in Antarctica.

http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/blog/2009/10/09/polar-survival-a-century-ago-good-planning-or-just-good-weather/

Hudson Mountains on Pine Island Glacier

As we approach our survey area, John Sonntag from NASA’s flight facility on Wallops Island and I watch the navigation display and admire the the pilots’ precision as they steer the giant NASA DC-8 aircraft to the start of our first survey line.

We are here to measure the glacier’s ice surface with lasers, its bottom with radar and estimate the depth of the water below it with an instrument that measures the gravity pull from above the glacier.

All systems are functioning well and we are excited about the data coming in. The computer screen mounted on University of Kansas’s radar rack is a popular in-flight gathering spot since it provides a real-time view of the radar data that allows us to “see” the bottom of the glacier while we fly over it.

The structures we see are quite amazing and we toss around ideas about what this tells us about how the glacier is responding to warming temperatures. Science can be so much fun! After crisscrossing Pine Island Glacier several times, it’s time to head home to Punta Arenas. Weather permitting we will be back tomorrow.

Calving front of Pine Island Glacier, where icebergs are born

Snow-covered crevasses near the edge of Pine Island Glacier. Small meltwater ponds are visible even though it's early in the Antarctic summer.

Flying over the floating part of Pine Island Glacier. Winds have blown away the sea ice to create an area of open water called a polynya.

Pine Island Glacier, heavily crevassed. Measurements are best collected from a low-flying plane or satellites because traveling over the surface is so difficult.

]]> http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/blog/2009/10/28/over-pine-island-glacier-west-antarctica/feed/ http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/blog/2009/10/27/changing-the-urban-relationship-to-food/ http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/blog/2009/10/27/changing-the-urban-relationship-to-food/#comments Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:46:46 +0000 urbandesignlab http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/?p=614 Contributed by Maria Paola Sutto

With an Italian background, from a culture of food, as biologist and one time theatre producer, to me it makes sense to work with a research group that has the courage to break many taboos and re-discuss academic assumptions in an open and innovative way.

Food has been studied in the Urban Design Lab since 2004, when a collaborative studio, enabled by the UDL with the participation of the Mailman School of Public Health Professor Dickson DesPommier and the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, studied the Gowanus Canal and explored concepts of vertical farming. Subsequently the studio evolved, joined by the School of Engineering and Applied Science through collaborations with Professor Patricia Culligan. In 2008, the fifth studio in this series was joined by the Columbia Office of Environmental Stewardship and its assistant vice president Nilda Mesa and collaborated with the Go Green Initiative fostered by Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer. In this instance, graduate students designed various interesting proposals related to food, from urban agricultural units, to mechanical structures functioning as “artificial” trees, to green supermarkets - theirs is the idea of a “green card” that the Borough President is now implementing.

Parallel to this instructional work has been the Curbing Childhood Obesity project. This research, led by UDL’s Michael Conard and Kubi Ackerman in conjunction with Collaborative Initiatives at MIT, has strongly implicated the food system as the primary issue related to the obesity epidemic. In November 2008, the EI team participated in the organization of the “Food and Policy” conference, a joint effort between various actors and co-sponsored by the CU Office of Environmental Stewardship, the UDL and SIPA.

The activity of the Urban Design Lab regarding food continues working toward the quantification of an urban “foodshed” as a conceptual and operational tool in fostering diversification of our food sources; in analyzing the energy equation of urban agriculture; in considering the economic parameters of local food business; in proposing, implementing and monitoring various urban agricultural models and different ways of experiencing starting from where we live and work - namely the Columbia campus.

Encouraging this new awareness, in which food and the process that brings it to our table can be more evident and in which the disparities are addressed in an integrated way, is part of a continuing effort to keep scientific, political and public attention focused on this crucial issue.

Maria Paola Sutto is the UDL Urban Securities Coordinator. A Biologist and Journalist by training, her interest lays in a shared area where different disciplines intersect: from ecological science to social science, from economy, to art and architecture. Together with Richard Plunz, she recently edited the book Urban Climate Change Crossroads, Ashgate Publisher, forthcoming.

Nick Frearson as 'Night Watchman' for the gravimeter.

Nick Frearson, Gravimeter Instrument Team, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory:

PUNTA ARENAS, Chile–I have become a night watchman of sorts. The gravimeter we’re using in our flights over Antarctica must remain powered at all times, so between flights I hole up in the old terminal next to the aircraft watching, …and watching. We won’t be on the first few flights, so our focus for now is to make sure the gravimeter functions smoothly in the air. We have rigged up a light in the window of the plane connected to the gravimeter rack so I can tell instantly if we lose power. I can also see if the constant wind whipping through the area rips any of the cables loose.

For our first mission to Getz Ice Shelf on Friday we had cool temperatures of 40 ° F and a BRISK wind of 40 knots. The plan is to start with the most difficult flights– areas that are farthest away or with the worst weather– early in the season. Getz Ice Shelf lies along the fringe of Marie Byrd Land and creeps into the Amundsen Sea in West Antarctica. This eleven hour flight will cover a long stretch of sea ice, onto Getz ice shelf, and then up the Davitz glacier.

Follow our flights  through twitter updates linked to our icebridge webpage www.ldeo.columbia.edu/icebridge

Launching an effort to change the nature of development training; Photo: David Wentworth

Typically, development professionals do not have the background in the natural and health sciences they need to properly understand the complex forces affecting issues such as hunger and extreme poverty. The innovative M.P.A. in Development Practice, which started this fall, is meant to help change that.

This degree is the first of a network of Master’s in Development programs that will be established around the world, with generous support from the MacArthur Foundation. Earth Institute research associate John McArthur (CEO and executive director of Millennium Promise) and Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute, gathered an international commission of experts and practitioners to lay the groundwork for an education program that will revolutionize the way development practitioners are trained.

The 24 students who started the program this fall are both eager and anxious at the same time, says Glenn Denning, the program’s new director. Being the first class is not easy—there are no graduates of the program whose example they can follow—but the students are rising to the challenge.

“Everyone I’ve met in this program so far has a certain spark,” says Denning. “They really want to make a difference out there in the developing world, wherever they come from. They are excited about making a contribution once they graduate.”

The goal of the program is to give its students more than background knowledge and interesting theories. “The way we’re going to do it is to bring students into direct contact with very experienced people who’ve done development work in the field and at policy levels for many years,” says Denning.

“So students are going to get firsthand observations and practical lessons from people who have really been in the field,” says Denning. “These are not just academics. These are people who have, over many years, learned what works and what doesn’t work and what are some of the challenges and approaches to designing and implementing programs in difficult areas.” Denning himself is a veteran practitioner of development work. Before becoming director of the degree program, he managed the Earth Institute’s Millennium Development Goals center in Kenya, which supports the work of the Millennium Villages project.

One of the main features of the program is the Global Classroom, an interactive series of lectures that allows classes to participate from around the world in real time. Students enrolled in the M.P.A. are also taking courses this semester in economics, food systems, public health and management. During the summer between their first and second years, they will be offered opportunities to work in the Millennium Villages in Africa to experience firsthand how to effectively practice sustainable development.

“Most of the students come with some kind of development experience,” says Denning. “But none of them have really had this opportunity to pursue this multidisciplinary, cross-sectoral approach that is unique to the Millennium Villages project. And out of that, they’ll understand the importance of a holistic practical approach to sustainable development.”