State of the Planet

News from the Columbia Climate School

Earth Sciences55

  • Pratigya Polissar Sees Landscapes Changing Through a Microscope

    Pratigya Polissar Sees Landscapes Changing Through a Microscope

    The word fossils typically conjures images of T-Rexes and trilobites. Pratigya Polissar thinks micro: A paleoclimatologist, he digs into old sediments and studies molecular fossils—the microscopic remains of plants and animals that can tell us a lot about what was living in a particular time period.

  • Kirsty Tinto: Mapping on and under Antarctica’s Ice

    Kirsty Tinto: Mapping on and under Antarctica’s Ice

    Kirsty Tinto flies aboard a specially equipped airplane in very cold places to study ice sheets and ice shelves. She’s an associate research scientist in the polar geophysics group at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.

  • Park Williams Discovers History and Science in a Tree Ring

    Park Williams Discovers History and Science in a Tree Ring

    Park Williams studies trees and climate, in particular the causes of drought and the effects of climate change on forests. In this latest in a series of Earth Institute videos, we spoke to him about what he does, what’s important about it, and how his interest in history and environmental science blended into a career.

  • Work on Dead Sea Geology Earns Yael Kiro an Award

    Work on Dead Sea Geology Earns Yael Kiro an Award

    Yael Kiro, an associate research scientist at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, has received the 2017 Professor Rafi Freund Award from the Israel Geological Society for work published on the ancient climate history of the Dead Sea.

  • Trump’s Budget will Harm the Planet and the Economy

    Trump’s Budget will Harm the Planet and the Economy

    Trump’s proposed budget includes an effort to shrink funding for university-based science research and the national labs run by the Department of Energy. Research on fundamental earth systems science is also cut as is funding for state environmental agencies and national environmental emergency response.

  • Peering into Volcanoes: a Talk with Einat Lev

    Peering into Volcanoes: a Talk with Einat Lev

    What do the scientists and researchers around the Earth Institute do? In this second in a series, Einat Lev from the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory talks about her work on volcanoes what she’d like people to know about it, and what inspired her to go into the field.

  • Tapping into Ocean Power

    Tapping into Ocean Power

    The oceans of the world are a vast unexploited source of clean, reliable and predictable renewable energy. Could this energy help replace fossil fuels and be a solution to climate change?

  • Indonesian Corals Shed Light on Climate System

    Indonesian Corals Shed Light on Climate System

    A new coral salinity record shows that the location of the most significant hydroclimatic feature in the Southern Hemisphere, the South Pacific Convergence Zone, influences a major Pacific Ocean current.

  • Sampling on the Ganges and Brahmaputra Rivers

    Sampling on the Ganges and Brahmaputra Rivers

    The final phase of our revolves around visiting chars, sandy river islands, on the Ganges and Brahmaputra River. Chris and Dan are making measurements of soil salinity and moisture and spectra of the soil reflectance, while Liz and I collected samples for OSL dating and understanding the OSL properties of the river sediments here. This…

Overhead view of Columbia campus with text Columbia Climate School Class Day 2026: Congratulations Graduates

Congratulations to our Columbia Climate School Class of 2026 and all of our 2026 Columbia University graduates! Learn more about our May 15 Climate School Class Day celebration. 💙 #Columbia2026 #ColumbiaClimate2026

  • Pratigya Polissar Sees Landscapes Changing Through a Microscope

    Pratigya Polissar Sees Landscapes Changing Through a Microscope

    The word fossils typically conjures images of T-Rexes and trilobites. Pratigya Polissar thinks micro: A paleoclimatologist, he digs into old sediments and studies molecular fossils—the microscopic remains of plants and animals that can tell us a lot about what was living in a particular time period.

  • Kirsty Tinto: Mapping on and under Antarctica’s Ice

    Kirsty Tinto: Mapping on and under Antarctica’s Ice

    Kirsty Tinto flies aboard a specially equipped airplane in very cold places to study ice sheets and ice shelves. She’s an associate research scientist in the polar geophysics group at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.

  • Park Williams Discovers History and Science in a Tree Ring

    Park Williams Discovers History and Science in a Tree Ring

    Park Williams studies trees and climate, in particular the causes of drought and the effects of climate change on forests. In this latest in a series of Earth Institute videos, we spoke to him about what he does, what’s important about it, and how his interest in history and environmental science blended into a career.

  • Work on Dead Sea Geology Earns Yael Kiro an Award

    Work on Dead Sea Geology Earns Yael Kiro an Award

    Yael Kiro, an associate research scientist at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, has received the 2017 Professor Rafi Freund Award from the Israel Geological Society for work published on the ancient climate history of the Dead Sea.

  • Trump’s Budget will Harm the Planet and the Economy

    Trump’s Budget will Harm the Planet and the Economy

    Trump’s proposed budget includes an effort to shrink funding for university-based science research and the national labs run by the Department of Energy. Research on fundamental earth systems science is also cut as is funding for state environmental agencies and national environmental emergency response.

  • Peering into Volcanoes: a Talk with Einat Lev

    Peering into Volcanoes: a Talk with Einat Lev

    What do the scientists and researchers around the Earth Institute do? In this second in a series, Einat Lev from the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory talks about her work on volcanoes what she’d like people to know about it, and what inspired her to go into the field.

  • Tapping into Ocean Power

    Tapping into Ocean Power

    The oceans of the world are a vast unexploited source of clean, reliable and predictable renewable energy. Could this energy help replace fossil fuels and be a solution to climate change?

  • Indonesian Corals Shed Light on Climate System

    Indonesian Corals Shed Light on Climate System

    A new coral salinity record shows that the location of the most significant hydroclimatic feature in the Southern Hemisphere, the South Pacific Convergence Zone, influences a major Pacific Ocean current.

  • Sampling on the Ganges and Brahmaputra Rivers

    Sampling on the Ganges and Brahmaputra Rivers

    The final phase of our revolves around visiting chars, sandy river islands, on the Ganges and Brahmaputra River. Chris and Dan are making measurements of soil salinity and moisture and spectra of the soil reflectance, while Liz and I collected samples for OSL dating and understanding the OSL properties of the river sediments here. This…