Climate183
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A Dire Warning on Rapid Climate Change
Sea level rise from melting ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland threatens catastrophe for coastal cities within decades unless strong measures are taken to reduce CO2 emissions from the use of fossil fuels, argues climate scientist James Hansen.
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Spontaneous Clumping of Tropical Clouds
If you take a look at nearly any satellite image of clouds in the tropics, you’ll notice that the clouds tend to be organized into clusters. One specific type of cloud organization called “self-aggregation.” Self-aggregation is the tendency of tropical clouds to spontaneously clump together, solely due to interactions between the clouds and the surrounding…
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Head for the Hills
While we spent much of our time examining corals and swamps, studying sea level and storms, we became fascinated by a simple question: How did the hills of Exuma form?
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The Extreme Pacific Climate Now
The climate over the tropical Pacific is in an extreme state at the moment. That explains some of the extreme anomalies affecting the United States right now. It also gives us a window through which we can glimpse how even more dramatic and long-term climates of the distant past might have worked.
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Don’t Worry About Doomsday, Botanists Have a Plan
A new initiative of the Smithsonian Institution is building a frozen library cataloging snippets of plant tissue from every species on the planet.
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Sustainability Policy Is Taking Hold in China
I left China encouraged by the widespread receptivity to the theory and practice of sustainability, but aware of the huge challenge that lies ahead. As we flew from Guiyang to Beijing for the return flight home, I looked down and saw a countryside dotted with scores of windmills. The transition from a coal-based economy to…
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The Pope’s Challenge on Climate Change
Pope Francis’s broad-ranging encyclical warns that we are destroying our common home and face an immense and urgent challenge to protect it. But it goes far beyond just the subject of climate change, calling for a holistic and sustainable future.
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Antarctica’s Retreating Ice
While the ice sheets on West Antarctica and the Antarctic Peninsula are usually the ones to make the news in relation to climate change, recent studies have documented transformations that are taking place on the East Antarctic Ice Sheet as well. On the continent as a whole, large areas of ice have already melted and…
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The Centrality of Sustainability
The most powerful political argument for protecting the planet is that to retain what we have, we must gradually change how we deliver the goods and services that people enjoy. The argument that people must give up what they enjoy does not win elections.
By studying thousands of buildings and analyzing their electricity use, Columbia Climate School Dean Alexis Abramson has been able to uncover ways to significantly cut energy consumption and emissions. Watch the Video: “Engineering a Cooler Future Through Smarter Buildings“
