Can shifting tides trigger earthquakes? Research done by Maya Tolstoy, a geophysicist at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, suggests they do.
400 ppm World, Part 1: Large Changes Still to Come
Why should society care that CO2 is now as high as 400 ppm? The reasons are multiple, but all trace back to the relationship between CO2 and temperature.
Climate in the Peruvian Andes: From Early Humans to Modern Challenges
Twice humans have witnessed the wasting of snow and ice from Peru’s tallest volcano, Nevado Coropuna—In the waning of the last ice age, some 12,000 years ago, and today, as industrial carbon dioxide in the air raises temperatures again. As in the past, Coropuna’s retreating glaciers figure prominently in the lives of people below. In an ongoing project, scientists at Columba University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and partner institutions are reconstructing the ebb and flow of ice on Coropuna since the last ice age to understand how the tropics influence the global climate system, how ice-loss and a warmer climate will impact farming in the region, and what adaptation measures might help people survive in this hotter, drier world.
Lamont Scientist Featured in Antarctic Climate Change Documentary
Lamont-Doherty scientist Hugh Ducklow is featured in a documentary due out next summer on climate change and the West Antarctic Peninsula. Catch a preview in this newly-released trailer.
Panel on New York’s Future After Sandy
In a live webcast this afternoon from Hunter College, Earth Institute scientists Cynthia Rosenzweig and Klaus Jacob will join a panel on “Hurricane Sandy and Challenges to the NY Metropolitan Region.”
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.
We Don’t Know All About Hurricanes–But We Know Enough to Act
Sandy instantly brought a new kind of national media attention to the influence of global warming on weather disasters. After several years of near-silence on climate from our political leaders and the mainstream media, the renewed attention is profoundly welcome.
Expanding Our Vision Brings the Big Picture Into Focus
1500 feet above the ground surface is where our suite of instruments normally operates, but for this flight we are taking them up higher, much higher, in fact over 20 times our normal range to 33,000 feet. Our flight plan is to repeat lines surveyed in a previous years by NASA’s Land, Vegetation Ice Sensor [...]
The Story at Ronne
Named after Edith Ronne, the first American woman to set foot on this southern continent, the Ronne Ice Shelf is tucked just to the East of the Antarctic Peninsula on the backside of the Transantarctic Mountains. With an area measured at 422,000 square kms, this is the second largest ice shelf in Antarctica. This vast [...]
