Author: Columbia Climate School51
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Oceanographer Dwi Susanto Provides a View from his Earthquake Stricken Hometown in Indonesia
Dwi Susanto is a senior staff associate and director of Indonesian research coordination at Lamont-Doherty who specializes in studying tropical ocean circulation. He was visiting Jakarta recently when an earthquake struck his home town on the island of Java. He contributed this report on conditions in Indonesia. Report from Indonesia On Saturday morning May 27,…
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Working with Rural Communities in India: Q & A with Nirupam Bajpai
Q & A with Nirupam Bajpai
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G. Michael Purdy Awarded 2006 Maurice Ewing Medal
Honor by the American Geophysical Union recognizes more than 30-year commitment as a researcher, administrator and innovator in the earth sciences
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Water shortages in Northeast Linked to Human Activity
Recent water shortages in Rockland County, N.Y., reveal an increasing mismatch between water demand and supply following rapid growth in the Northeast during period of abnormally high precipitation. With the summer approaching, new research has shown that recent water emergencies in the Northeast have resulted from more than just dry weather. Instead, researchers from The…
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Researchers Assess Risks Associated with Living in Low-Lying Coastal Areas
For many, sea-level rise is a remote and distant threat faced by people like the residents of the Tuvalu Islands in the South Pacific, where the highest point of land is only 5 meters (15 feet) above sea level and tidal floods occasionally cover their crops in seawater. Now, however, a recently published study by…
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Earth: Utilities Included
by Shahid Naeem, Professor of Ecology, Columbia University The day all utilities and service providers stop sending us bills would be a day of unparalleled celebration, with ticker-tape parades for the executives of utilities companies, and the naming of national heroes. Until that day comes, we have Earth Day. Our most vital utilities and services…
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Movement to End Poverty Goes Urban in Africa
Sustainable development demands that two disparate systems — urban and rural — equally meet the needs of their inhabitants without overburdening natural resources. The sustainability of agriculturally based villages, for example, depends on the health and well being of cities for access to large markets and services. Put simply, the sustainable development of one requires…
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Tough Environmental Policy Question? Bring in the MPAs
One hundred million personal computers were disposed of in 2004, and they are not benign — computers contain hazardous materials harmful to human health and the environment, and no policy exists to manage this e-waste. Is anyone working on this problem? Bring in the MPAs. This semester, a group studying to get their Masters’ in…
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Could Reducing Global Dimming Mean a Hotter, Dryer World?
Despite concerns over global warming, scientists have discovered something that may have actually limited the impact of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere in recent years by reducing the amount of sunlight reaching the surface of the Earth. In research they published last year in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, a team led by Beate Liepert…