Researchers have long recognized the Arctic as a region that shows early and amplified signals of anthropogenically-driven global climate change (e.g., IPCC 2001; Technical Basis, p. 807). Among the most dramatic and most widely watched changes in this region each summer is the retreat of the Arctic sea ice extent. Since it first became possible…
Earlier today it was announced that Wallace S. Broecker, Newberry Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University, has received the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Climate Change Research. In announcing the award, the jury cited Wally for his seminal research on ocean chemistry and for pioneering the development of Earth System…
This blog, Climate Matters @ Columbia, is brought to you by the Columbia Climate Center, created in 2007 by the Earth Institute, Columbia University. The mission of the Columbia Climate Center is to integrate climate related research throughout Columbia University and to build upon it to address the challenges of understanding, predicting, adapting to, and…
The NYT’s Andy Revkin notes that China opened its first large-scale coal-to-liquid (CTL) facility on December 30. CTL technology, which converts coal into liquid fuel such as gasoline or diesel, has been around since the early 20th century, but has only been widely used twice – in Germany during World War II and in South…
By George Deodatis Although not officially announced yet, it is almost certain that the eagerly anticipated stimulus plan of Obama’s new administration will include hundreds of billions of dollars in a wide range of civil infrastructure works, as commented by Anne Polansky’s
If the recent Conference of the Parties in Poznan, Poland was any indication, next year’s buzzword in the climate-change community will be climate risk insurance. “Dealing with insurance is of fundamental importance in order to meet adaptation objectives,” said UNFCCC Secretary General Yvo de Boer. “If you can’t get insurance because climate change makes you…
This is just a short post to draw your attention to John Tierney’s New York Times column on John Holdren’s appointment as Obama’s science advisor. Tierney contends that: “Dr. Holdren is certainly entitled to his views, but what concerns me is his tendency to conflate the science of climate change with prescriptions to cut greenhouse…
A paper released last week by the World Meteorological Organization reports that the preliminary global mean temperature for 2008 is 14.3°C (57.7° F). This is significantly below 2007’s 14.7°C (58.5°F), and – as Time magazine reports – the coolest year since the turn of the century. Sadly, our half-hearted efforts at carbon offsetting cannot take…
The prospects of significant and damaging changes in the hydrological cycle due to the increase in atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations were raised in earlier IPCC reports and restated more strongly in the most recent, 2007 Fourth Assessment Report (AR4). Now, the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) issued its final Synthesis and Assessment Report on…