State of the Planet

News from the Columbia Climate School

Climate258

  • COP16 event on Climate Services & Disaster Risk

    December 3: COP16 event in Cancún on Climate Services and Disaster Risk Management.

  • Parched for Peace: The UAE has Oil and Money, but No Water

    Parched for Peace: The UAE has Oil and Money, but No Water

    One of the greatest challenges to sustaining 1.8 million people in an extremely arid locale is water, which in the coastal city of Dubai is abundant but not potable.

  • Strengthening U.S.-India Agricultural Research

    Strengthening U.S.-India Agricultural Research

    Earlier this month, U.S. President Barack Obama and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced a new era of collaboration on agricultural research in the face of climate change.

  • The Multiple Faces of Antarctic Ice

    The Multiple Faces of Antarctic Ice

    Kirsty Tinto joins Operation IceBridge on two flights over the Amundsen Sea and past Thwaites Glacier to survey the Getz and the Dotson ice shelves.

  • ‘Small is Also Beautiful’ – Appropriate Technology Cuts Rice Farmers’ Water Use by 30 Percent in Punjab, India

    ‘Small is Also Beautiful’ – Appropriate Technology Cuts Rice Farmers’ Water Use by 30 Percent in Punjab, India

    Since the 1960s, farmers in Punjab, India have practiced some of the most intensive broad scale grain production in the world. As a result, the state has earned the nickname “the food bowl of India” for its out sized role in adopting and implementing Green Revolution technologies that in the last decades of the 20th…

  • Parched for Peace: A Miniseries on the Mideast Water Crisis

    Parched for Peace: A Miniseries on the Mideast Water Crisis

    For a vast majority of the past fifty years, oil and its abundance defined the Middle East. In coming years, however, that part of the world may well be defined by the dearth of a different natural resource: water.

  • Answering Claims of the Climate Skeptics: An Introduction

    Answering Claims of the Climate Skeptics: An Introduction

    Despite a plethora of evidence that anthropogenic climate change is occurring, there remains a vocal minority of critics, both within the climate community and in the general public, who challenge this accepted position.

  • Is Groundwater Depletion Causing Sea-level Rise?

    Is Groundwater Depletion Causing Sea-level Rise?

    A recent study from Yoshihide Wada and other researchers from Utrecht University attempted to assess the status of global groundwater depletion—that is, the amount of water that is being drawn out from underground reservoirs that is not being replaced by precipitation—and came up with some startling conclusions. Chief among them that depletion of groundwater may…

  • Climate News Roundup – Week of 11/05/2010

    Climate News Roundup – Week of 11/05/2010

    The Arctic Shifts to a New Climate Pattern in Which ‘Normal’ Becomes Obsolete, NY Times, Oct. 22 Record high temperatures in the Arctic this year is another sign that the troubling trend of ice cap disintegration, permafrost melting, and snow cover shrinking is becoming irreversible, according to a new National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration report.…

Composite banner with modern building at night and portrait of Dean Alexis Abramson that reads "Science for the Planet"

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

  • COP16 event on Climate Services & Disaster Risk

    December 3: COP16 event in Cancún on Climate Services and Disaster Risk Management.

  • Parched for Peace: The UAE has Oil and Money, but No Water

    Parched for Peace: The UAE has Oil and Money, but No Water

    One of the greatest challenges to sustaining 1.8 million people in an extremely arid locale is water, which in the coastal city of Dubai is abundant but not potable.

  • Strengthening U.S.-India Agricultural Research

    Strengthening U.S.-India Agricultural Research

    Earlier this month, U.S. President Barack Obama and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced a new era of collaboration on agricultural research in the face of climate change.

  • The Multiple Faces of Antarctic Ice

    The Multiple Faces of Antarctic Ice

    Kirsty Tinto joins Operation IceBridge on two flights over the Amundsen Sea and past Thwaites Glacier to survey the Getz and the Dotson ice shelves.

  • ‘Small is Also Beautiful’ – Appropriate Technology Cuts Rice Farmers’ Water Use by 30 Percent in Punjab, India

    ‘Small is Also Beautiful’ – Appropriate Technology Cuts Rice Farmers’ Water Use by 30 Percent in Punjab, India

    Since the 1960s, farmers in Punjab, India have practiced some of the most intensive broad scale grain production in the world. As a result, the state has earned the nickname “the food bowl of India” for its out sized role in adopting and implementing Green Revolution technologies that in the last decades of the 20th…

  • Parched for Peace: A Miniseries on the Mideast Water Crisis

    Parched for Peace: A Miniseries on the Mideast Water Crisis

    For a vast majority of the past fifty years, oil and its abundance defined the Middle East. In coming years, however, that part of the world may well be defined by the dearth of a different natural resource: water.

  • Answering Claims of the Climate Skeptics: An Introduction

    Answering Claims of the Climate Skeptics: An Introduction

    Despite a plethora of evidence that anthropogenic climate change is occurring, there remains a vocal minority of critics, both within the climate community and in the general public, who challenge this accepted position.

  • Is Groundwater Depletion Causing Sea-level Rise?

    Is Groundwater Depletion Causing Sea-level Rise?

    A recent study from Yoshihide Wada and other researchers from Utrecht University attempted to assess the status of global groundwater depletion—that is, the amount of water that is being drawn out from underground reservoirs that is not being replaced by precipitation—and came up with some startling conclusions. Chief among them that depletion of groundwater may…

  • Climate News Roundup – Week of 11/05/2010

    Climate News Roundup – Week of 11/05/2010

    The Arctic Shifts to a New Climate Pattern in Which ‘Normal’ Becomes Obsolete, NY Times, Oct. 22 Record high temperatures in the Arctic this year is another sign that the troubling trend of ice cap disintegration, permafrost melting, and snow cover shrinking is becoming irreversible, according to a new National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration report.…