Posts
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Portland Opposes a Federal Rule due to a “Unique Water Source”
In Portland, Oregon Federal Water Treatment Rule LT2 faces opposition due to high water costs and what its City Commissioner describes as its “unique water source”.
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Can Big Earthquakes Disrupt World Weather?
The recent earthquake in Japan shifted the earth’s axis by half a foot. You may be wondering if that’s enough to change earth’s weather. No, not really, says Jerry McManus, a climate scientist at Columbia’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. Earthquakes unleash a tremendous amount of energy, but not enough to upset the energy balance of earth’s…
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Switchyard Project: In Transit…Part 2
April 27, 2011: We spent the night in Thule in the North Star Hotel. Before we could leave Thule the crew had to load the cargo back into the C130. Equipment is loaded onto palettes, and these palettes are loaded through the rear door into the plane. A C130 can handle four palettes with two tons of cargo…
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Switchyard Project: In Transit…Part 1
Bags are packed and ready to go. April 25, 2011: We left Lamont in the afternoon to Schenectady, close to Scotia where the 109th Airlift Wing of the New York Air National Guard is located that will fly us up to CFS Alert. That unit provides extensive logistical support for all U.S. science operations in the arctic and…
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Switchyard Project: Tracking the Arctic Seascape
Arctic summer sea ice is declining rapidly: a trend with enormous implications for global weather and climate. The multi-year Arctic Switchyard project will seek to distinguish the effects of natural climate variability from those of human-induced climate change.
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A 30 year history of measuring Greenland’s Breathtaking Vistas
We flew our last science flight out of Kangerlussuaq Base (western Greenland) over the Geikie Peninsula, on the east coast of Greenland. This high priority mission had not been completed prior to this because of difficult weather in the peninsula area. The mission focus was to determine how the surface ice elevation and ice thickness…
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Jeffrey Sachs Extends Term as Director of Earth Institute
The Earth Institute, Columbia University announced that Professor Jeffrey Sachs has agreed to extend his term as its director. Since his tenure began in 2002, Sachs has led the Earth Institute to become a leading scientific authority on sustainable development while simultaneously expanding its reach worldwide. Through his guidance, the Earth Institute and its scientists…
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Test Your Energy-Saving Savvy
What hogs more energy? A desktop computer or a laptop? Central air conditioning or an A/C unit? Take Slate’s energy quiz and find out. The magazine collaborated with researchers at Columbia’s Earth Institute to come up with questions to test if readers know how much energy their household appliances are guzzling. The quiz was adapted…
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Paulie, Jimmy and Vinny on NYC’s Water Future
New York City’s trio of water and sewer czars, explain the reasons behind rising rates.
