Earth Sciences98
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Tree Rings and Teachable Moments
Nicole Davi, a postdoctoral scientist at the International Research Institute for Climate and Society and the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory, thinks tree rings are an ideal way to motivate students to collect and analyze data as well as to learn about climate change.
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If You’re Not Going to San Francisco
Keep an eye on State of the Planet over the next week for updates on the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union.
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Frozen Water on Mercury, NASA Confirms
Mercury, the planet closest to the Sun, may hold at least 100 billion tons of ice in permanently shaded craters near its north pole, NASA scientists announced Thursday. The findings come as NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft nears its second year of orbit around Mercury. MESSENGER’s lead investigator, Sean Solomon, is director of Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth…
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What Hurricane Sandy Was Not
“It is often said that generals always prepare to fight the last war. We need to be sure that we do not just prepare for the last disaster, and put all of our limited resources in guarding against that one, without thinking about the other things that could happen.”
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Tree Rings to Investigate Chimborazo’s Past Climate
The landscape around Chimborazo resembles the high desert in parts of the western United States. The terrain approaching Chimborazo is arid and rocky in appearance, with mostly small grassy and shrub-like vegetation growing on it. Finding trees large enough to sample above 4000 meters was, needless to say, a bit of a challenge, but they…
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Putting Up Weather Station Chimborazo
Changes in glacier mass will have significant social and economic consequences for cities around Chimborazo and I’m hoping the specially built weather station will shed more light on the climate factors contributing to glacier loss.
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After Sandy, Testing the Waters
During Hurricane Sandy the seas rose a record 14-feet in lower Manhattan. Water flooded city streets, subways, tunnels and even sewage treatment plants. It is unclear how much sewage may have been released as plants lost power or were forced to divert untreated wastewater into the Hudson River. Four days after Sandy, the environmental group…
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We Don’t Know All About Hurricanes–But We Know Enough to Act
Sandy instantly brought a new kind of national media attention to the influence of global warming on weather disasters. After several years of near-silence on climate from our political leaders and the mainstream media, the renewed attention is profoundly welcome.
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Cotopaxi Skies
Because of Cotopaxi’s almost perfectly conic shape, the climb appears be a straight line to the top. It isn’t. In fact, the climb winds past spires of ice and vast blue crevasses the size of small canyons. Cotopaxi is a beautiful mountain.
AGU25, the premier Earth and space science conference, takes place December 15-19, 2025 in New Orleans, Louisiana. This year’s theme—Where Science Connects Us—puts in focus how science depends on connection, from the lab to the field to the ballot box. Once again, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and Columbia Climate School scientists, experts, students, and educators are playing an active role, sharing our research and helping shape the future of our planet. #AGU25 Learn More
