Climate263
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Year Without a Summer? Not this Time.
You may have heard about the Year Without the Summer, 1816, when severe climate anomalies linked to the eruption of Indonesia’s Mt Tambora provoked widespread famine, the westward expansion of the United States, the invention of the bicycle, and Frankenstein. So epic, so influential: Tales of the dramatic climate impacts of that fateful year got…
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The Desert Margins – vulnerable to desertification, but not hopeless
Most people are aware that vegetative cover, such as trees or other shade producing plants, helps to keep moisture in the soil, especially in the driest climates. Not all plants have the same effect, though.
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Creating More Useful Forecasts
Seasonal forecasts can be effective tools for agricultural planners, water resources managers and other decision makers. For example, after torrential rains and floods wreaked havoc in the West African nation of Ghana in 2007, displacing some 400,000 people there, the regional office of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies started using…
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Taro Takahashi Wins Top U.N. Award for Environmental Leadership
The United Nations has awarded Taro Takahashi, a geochemist at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, its highest honor for environmental leadership, the Champions of the Earth award, for his research on the oceans’ uptake of carbon dioxide and its implications for global warming. He was presented with a trophy and a $40,000 prize on Thursday, April 22,…
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Study Reconstructs Asia’s Most Devastating Droughts
Key to Understanding Monsoon and Climate’s Impacts
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Illuminating the Science: Art and Climate Change
On Thursday I’ll be attending Illuminating the Science: Art and Climate Change. The event’s project is surely ambitious. It claims not only that climate data might be better communicated, or made more robust, through the arts, but that indeed “the landscape of numbers can be populated by dreams in the form of images, dance or music,…
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Addressing urban water scarcity in developing countries: Chennai, India
Ensuring an adequate water supply isn’t only an issue for large urban centers like New York or Los Angeles. It’s also a vital concern of the growing populations of cities in the developing world. Veena Srinivasan, of the Department of Environmental Earth System Science, Stanford University, shared her work on ‘The integrated water paradigm: a…
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El Niño Begins to Dissipate
Though weak El Niño conditions still exist, it appears that the climatic phenomenon that developed over the course of last summer has finally begun to dissipate. As reported earlier, El Niño is the name given to sustained sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies greater than 0.5°C across the central tropical Pacific Ocean. It is the warm…
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Wally Broecker: 50 Years of Climate Science Innovation
Since arriving at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in 1952, for a college summer internship, Wally Broecker has come up with some of the most important ideas in modern climate science. He was one of the first researchers to recognize the potential for human-influenced climate change, and to testify before Congress about its dangers. He helped pioneer…
The first Earth Day in 1970 ignited a movement to stop polluting our planet. This Earth Month, join us in our commitment to realizing a just and sustainable future for our planet. Visit our Earth Day website for ideas, resources, and inspiration.