climate change132
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Going West
After a busy few weeks in the Cordillera Carabaya, our field team has said goodbye to the snowy, tempestuous climate of the eastern Andes and is moving west to the desert of Arequipa. Here the mountains are massive, isolated volcanoes, many of which exceed 6000 m in elevation. In fact, Coropuna is the third highest…
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Climate News Roundup: Week of 7/10
Climate Change Drives Disease in Crucial Seaweed Species, Study Finds, Reuters, Jul 12 A new study from the University of New South Wales in Sydney links the spread of disease in a type of seaweed that is critical for marine life to climate change. Through field and lab observations, the researchers discovered that in warmer…
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Mad Dogs and Englishmen
Our field team has acquired a dog, ¨”Mooch”. Walking back to camp yesterday, amid driving snow and fully laden with rock samples, there he was exploring what passes for our kitchen. Unlike most Andean dogs – ferocious beasts trained to keep geologists from harassing the livestock – this one is a cheerful soul, happy to…
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Studying the Farthest-North Trees
A team led by Kevin Anchukaitis of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory Tree Ring Lab is currently in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, studying the effects of changing climate on trees. Working near the treeline, they’re taking cores from spindly white spruces to measure weather of the past.
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Can the Oceans Keep Mopping Up Carbon Dioxide?
The oceans absorb nearly a third of the carbon dioxide humans put into the air, and this has helped offset CO2’s potential to warm global temperatures. But many researchers think the oceans are struggling to keep pace with rising emissions. A new study looks at 30 years of data to see how natural variability and…
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Ancient mud from the high Andes
Thanks in large part to Matt, an undergraduate from Pacific Lutheran University in Washington, our field team now has more than sixty samples for surface-exposure dating. This is no easy feat, for collecting these samples requires a great deal of hammering on granite boulders with nothing more than a hammer and chisel. There are other…
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Ripple Effect Author Talks Efficiency; Cleanup
The outlook for global water is bleak, but Alex Prud’Homme still believes in the power of human ingenuity.
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A typical day in the high Andes
Each morning starts the same in the Andes: the frost is heavy on the insides of our tents and falls with the slightest movement, while the realization that it´s going to be a freezing exit from the sleeping bag is tempered by gratitude that the thirteen hour night is over. Yes, sunrise in the Andes…
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Climate News Roundup: Week of 6/26
Prodigal Plankton Returns to the Atlantic, Discovery News, Jun 26 According to researchers with the Sir Alister Hardy Foundation for Ocean Science, a species of plankton called Neodenticula seminae is an Atlantic resident again, 800,000 years after it became extinct in the ocean. The microscopic plant has been documented with sufficient frequency over the last…
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!
