State of the Planet

News from the Columbia Climate School

climate change120

  • Expanding Our Vision Brings the Big Picture Into Focus

    Expanding Our Vision Brings the Big Picture Into Focus

    1500 feet above the ground surface is where our suite of instruments normally operates, but for this flight we are taking them up higher, much higher, in fact over 20 times our normal range to 33,000 feet. Our flight plan is to repeat lines surveyed in a previous years by NASA’s Land, Vegetation Ice Sensor…

  • Arctic Archipelago: Ground Zero For Climate Change

    Arctic Archipelago: Ground Zero For Climate Change

    Summer temperatures on the archipelago of Svalbard, 400 miles north of Norway, are now higher than at any other period in the last 1,800 years, according to a new study in the journal Geology.

  • The Story at Ronne

    The Story at Ronne

    Named after Edith Ronne, the first American woman to set foot on this southern continent, the Ronne Ice Shelf is tucked just to the East of the Antarctic Peninsula on the backside of the Transantarctic Mountains. With an area measured at 422,000 square kms, this is the second largest ice shelf in Antarctica. This vast…

  • The ‘Skinny’ on Antarctic Sea Ice

    The ‘Skinny’ on Antarctic Sea Ice

    One piece of our IceBridge mission focuses on sea ice here in the south. Sea ice in the northern regions has been reducing at dramatic rates over the last decade, setting a new record just this year, but the story in the south is not so clear. In fact, there has been a buzz that…

  • A Recovery Mission

    A Recovery Mission

    Recovery Glacier is a section of Antarctic ice that lies east of the peninsular arm of West Antarctica, tucked behind the Transantarctic Mountains, a dividing line that separates west from east. We know from satellite data that Recovery and its tributaries have a deep reach, stretching well inland. But there is a lot we don’t…

  • Hiron Point in Sundarban

    Hiron Point in Sundarban

    We traveled by boat to the south part of the Sundarbans near the Indian Ocean to install a GPS at Hiron Point, this isolated facility also hosts a tide gauge recording long-term water level changes due to rising sea level and land subsidence. Our GPS will help distinguish how much of each there is in…

  • Polder 32

    Polder 32

    Polder 32 is one of the many inland islands in Bangladesh that was enclosed by an embankment to protect it from flooding. When that embankment failed during Cyclone Aila in 2009, the island was flooded for almost 2 years. Subsidence of the ground inside the embankment with no sedimentation to compensate made it worse. We…

  • Khepupara to Kokilmoni

    Khepupara to Kokilmoni

    Leaving Dhaka, we spend an entire day getting to Khepupara in southern Bangladesh. Then we spent a long morning installing a GPS to monitor subsidence of the delta before heading back on the road again.

  • Columbia-PepsiCo Collaboration Creates Tool for Calculating Carbon Footprints

    Columbia-PepsiCo Collaboration Creates Tool for Calculating Carbon Footprints

    Researchers at the Earth Institute’s Lenfest Center for Sustainable Energy working in collaboration with PepsiCo, Inc. have developed new software that rapidly calculates the carbon footprints of thousands of products simultaneously.

Composite banner with modern building at night and portrait of Dean Alexis Abramson that reads "Science for the Planet"

By studying thousands of buildings and analyzing their electricity use, Columbia Climate School Dean Alexis Abramson has been able to uncover ways to significantly cut energy consumption and emissions. Watch the Video: “Engineering a Cooler Future Through Smarter Buildings

  • Expanding Our Vision Brings the Big Picture Into Focus

    Expanding Our Vision Brings the Big Picture Into Focus

    1500 feet above the ground surface is where our suite of instruments normally operates, but for this flight we are taking them up higher, much higher, in fact over 20 times our normal range to 33,000 feet. Our flight plan is to repeat lines surveyed in a previous years by NASA’s Land, Vegetation Ice Sensor…

  • Arctic Archipelago: Ground Zero For Climate Change

    Arctic Archipelago: Ground Zero For Climate Change

    Summer temperatures on the archipelago of Svalbard, 400 miles north of Norway, are now higher than at any other period in the last 1,800 years, according to a new study in the journal Geology.

  • The Story at Ronne

    The Story at Ronne

    Named after Edith Ronne, the first American woman to set foot on this southern continent, the Ronne Ice Shelf is tucked just to the East of the Antarctic Peninsula on the backside of the Transantarctic Mountains. With an area measured at 422,000 square kms, this is the second largest ice shelf in Antarctica. This vast…

  • The ‘Skinny’ on Antarctic Sea Ice

    The ‘Skinny’ on Antarctic Sea Ice

    One piece of our IceBridge mission focuses on sea ice here in the south. Sea ice in the northern regions has been reducing at dramatic rates over the last decade, setting a new record just this year, but the story in the south is not so clear. In fact, there has been a buzz that…

  • A Recovery Mission

    A Recovery Mission

    Recovery Glacier is a section of Antarctic ice that lies east of the peninsular arm of West Antarctica, tucked behind the Transantarctic Mountains, a dividing line that separates west from east. We know from satellite data that Recovery and its tributaries have a deep reach, stretching well inland. But there is a lot we don’t…

  • Hiron Point in Sundarban

    Hiron Point in Sundarban

    We traveled by boat to the south part of the Sundarbans near the Indian Ocean to install a GPS at Hiron Point, this isolated facility also hosts a tide gauge recording long-term water level changes due to rising sea level and land subsidence. Our GPS will help distinguish how much of each there is in…

  • Polder 32

    Polder 32

    Polder 32 is one of the many inland islands in Bangladesh that was enclosed by an embankment to protect it from flooding. When that embankment failed during Cyclone Aila in 2009, the island was flooded for almost 2 years. Subsidence of the ground inside the embankment with no sedimentation to compensate made it worse. We…

  • Khepupara to Kokilmoni

    Khepupara to Kokilmoni

    Leaving Dhaka, we spend an entire day getting to Khepupara in southern Bangladesh. Then we spent a long morning installing a GPS to monitor subsidence of the delta before heading back on the road again.

  • Columbia-PepsiCo Collaboration Creates Tool for Calculating Carbon Footprints

    Columbia-PepsiCo Collaboration Creates Tool for Calculating Carbon Footprints

    Researchers at the Earth Institute’s Lenfest Center for Sustainable Energy working in collaboration with PepsiCo, Inc. have developed new software that rapidly calculates the carbon footprints of thousands of products simultaneously.