State of the Planet

News from the Columbia Climate School

Amazon2

  • Seeing the Amazon’s Future Through the Fog

    Seeing the Amazon’s Future Through the Fog

    Scientists have developed a new approach to modeling the water and carbon cycles in the Amazon that could lead to better climate forecasts and improved water resource management.

  • Warming Streams Have Cascading Impacts in the Amazon

    Warming Streams Have Cascading Impacts in the Amazon

    To protect a river, you must preserve its headwaters. Agricultural development is warming streams at the headwaters of the Xingu River, in Mato Grosso, Brazil. Rising temperatures have local impacts that could cascade into regional changes, highlighting the importance of responsible land use outside of protected areas.

  • What Do Wildfires Have to Do with Climate Change?

    What Do Wildfires Have to Do with Climate Change?

    “Climate change has been making the fire season in the United States longer and on average more intense,” said John Holdren, President Obama’s science advisor. And, wildfires are not only intensified by climate change, they also exacerbate it.

  • Farmers, Flames and Climate: Are We Entering an Age of ‘Mega-Fires’?

    Farmers, Flames and Climate: Are We Entering an Age of ‘Mega-Fires’?

    For millennia, people have set fires to clear land for cultivation, pastures or hunting; so-called slash-and-burn agriculture is still common across much of tropical Africa, Asia and South America. It has been a useful strategy–but …

  • Amazonians Have Shot at Reducing Greenhouse Gases, Says Study

    Amazonians Have Shot at Reducing Greenhouse Gases, Says Study

    The huge Brazilian Amazon state of Mato Grosso will cut its emissions of greenhouse gases by more than half if it sticks with current plans to reduce deforestation substantially by 2020, says a new study. The research, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, uses 105 years of historical data…

  • Seeing the Amazon’s Future Through the Fog

    Seeing the Amazon’s Future Through the Fog

    Scientists have developed a new approach to modeling the water and carbon cycles in the Amazon that could lead to better climate forecasts and improved water resource management.

  • Warming Streams Have Cascading Impacts in the Amazon

    Warming Streams Have Cascading Impacts in the Amazon

    To protect a river, you must preserve its headwaters. Agricultural development is warming streams at the headwaters of the Xingu River, in Mato Grosso, Brazil. Rising temperatures have local impacts that could cascade into regional changes, highlighting the importance of responsible land use outside of protected areas.

  • What Do Wildfires Have to Do with Climate Change?

    What Do Wildfires Have to Do with Climate Change?

    “Climate change has been making the fire season in the United States longer and on average more intense,” said John Holdren, President Obama’s science advisor. And, wildfires are not only intensified by climate change, they also exacerbate it.

  • Farmers, Flames and Climate: Are We Entering an Age of ‘Mega-Fires’?

    Farmers, Flames and Climate: Are We Entering an Age of ‘Mega-Fires’?

    For millennia, people have set fires to clear land for cultivation, pastures or hunting; so-called slash-and-burn agriculture is still common across much of tropical Africa, Asia and South America. It has been a useful strategy–but …

  • Amazonians Have Shot at Reducing Greenhouse Gases, Says Study

    Amazonians Have Shot at Reducing Greenhouse Gases, Says Study

    The huge Brazilian Amazon state of Mato Grosso will cut its emissions of greenhouse gases by more than half if it sticks with current plans to reduce deforestation substantially by 2020, says a new study. The research, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, uses 105 years of historical data…