Natural Disasters51
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The Microgrid Solution
Last October, Superstorm Sandy provoked widespread frustration and fear after it left more than 7.5 million people in the New York Metro area without power. In the hardest hit areas, outages lasted two weeks or more. These failures led many observers to wonder if America’s aging electrical grid was up to dealing with emerging climate…
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The Sahel Is Getting Wetter, But Will It Last?
New research gives a unifying explanation of the Sahel’s past, present and future climate patterns.
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Gone to Sea No More
After John Diebold, an enormously popular and influential marine scientist, died suddenly in summer 2010, friends and family erected a memorial to him: a carved red oak bench they installed on a causeway along the Hudson River, inscribed with “GONE TO SEA.” Then along came Hurricane Sandy.
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Talking Data-Driven Development with Haiti’s Prime Minister
On April 22, 2013 the Earth Institute’s Haiti Research and Policy Program at the Center on Globalization and Sustainable Development welcomed Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe to the Spring 2013 Haiti Dialogue Series and the Columbia University World Leader’s Forum. The prime minister and Haitian diplomats met with Earth Institute senior researchers to discuss the strategies…
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A Library of Giant Landslides
A new method for detecting big landslides is allowing scientists to understand the dynamics of these elusive events almost instantly, without traipsing to remote mountains or scrambling up rugged peaks months, or even years, later. In a recent study in the journal Science, Göran Ekström and Colin Stark, geophysicists at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory,…
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Where’s My Seasonal Tornado Forecast?
Tornadoes, derechos and other violent storms can kill hundreds each year and cause billions in damages. How well can we predict them? How will climate change influence their occurrence? Experts from around the country discussed these issues at a recent workshop.
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The Law of Drowning Nations
Sea levels are inching up year by year, and by various projections could be two to six feet higher by 2100—enough to make some small, low-lying island nations uninhabitable, or simply to wipe them off the map. What rights will citizens have to live elsewhere; in fact, will these entities actually still be nations, with…
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NY State Prepares for Natural Disasters: A Q&A with Cynthia Rosenzweig
Cynthia Rosenzweig of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies talks about the work of the New York State Ready Commission, set up after Hurricane Sandy to study how the state can better prepare for natural disasters.
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A New Primer on Sea Level
The threat of sea-level rise–actually, its ongoing reality–has been on many more minds since New York and surrounding areas were walloped during Hurricane Sandy by a record-high storm surge, abetted by a water level that has risen steadily over the last century. That level will keep rising if climate keeps warming, and so, probably, will…
You Asked invites you to share your most pressing questions about climate, science, and sustainability. Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and Columbia Climate School experts will respond with clear, evidence-based answers. Pose your questions and story ideas!
