State of the Planet

News from the Columbia Climate School

climate science15

  • American Geophysical Union 2017: Key Events From the Earth Institute

    American Geophysical Union 2017: Key Events From the Earth Institute

    A chronological guide to key talks and other events presented by Columbia University’s Earth Institute at the American Geophysical Union 2017 meeting. 

  • Where Is All That Carbon Dioxide Going?

    Where Is All That Carbon Dioxide Going?

    Concurrent with the announcement that human carbon emissions reached a new peak this year, Galen McKinley, a researcher at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, discusses the difficulties of tracking the sources and destinations of carbon dioxide.

  • National Climate Report: Q&A With Authors

    National Climate Report: Q&A With Authors

    Every four years Congress is provided with a state-of-the-art report on the impacts of climate change on the United States. The next National Climate Assessment is scheduled for 2018, but its scientific findings are scheduled to be published today. Here, two of its authors explain what to expect.

  • Giant Boulders on Bahamas Coast Are Evidence of Ancient Storms and Sea Level, Says Study

    Giant Boulders on Bahamas Coast Are Evidence of Ancient Storms and Sea Level, Says Study

    A new study says that storms of intensities seen today, combined with a few meters increase in sea level, were enough to transport coastal boulders weighing hundreds of tons more than 100,000 year ago.

  • In Biblical Land, Searching for Droughts Past and Future

    In Biblical Land, Searching for Droughts Past and Future

    Human-influenced climate warming has already reduced rainfall and increased evaporation in the Mideast, worsening water shortages. Up to now, climate scientists had projected that rainfall could decline another 20 percent by 2100. But the Dead Sea cores suggest that things could become much worse, much faster.

  • Photo Essay: The Dead Sea, Living Waters and Megadrought

    Photo Essay: The Dead Sea, Living Waters and Megadrought

    Thousands of years before Biblical times, during a period when temperatures were unusually high, the lands around the Dead Sea now occupied by Israel, Jordan and surrounding nations suffered megadroughts far worse than any recorded by humans. Warming climate now threatens to return such conditions to this already hard-pressed region.

  • How Climate Change Will Impact Investors

    How Climate Change Will Impact Investors

    A new report explores how advances in climate science can inform near-term investments in the global economy.

  • What the Vikings Can Teach Us About Adapting to Climate Change

    What the Vikings Can Teach Us About Adapting to Climate Change

    The rise of the Vikings was not a sudden event, but part of a long continuum of human development in the harsh conditions of northern Scandinavia. How did the Vikings make a living over the long term, and what might have influenced their brief florescence? Today, their experiences may provide a kind of object lesson…

  • The Earth Institute’s Newest Sustainability Program Begins in January 2018

    The Earth Institute’s Newest Sustainability Program Begins in January 2018

    Sustainability Science graduates will have the scientific know-how to help organizations improve their environmental performance.

Banner with images representing environmental issues and text "You Asked: Our Scientists and Experts Answer Your Burning Questions."

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!

  • American Geophysical Union 2017: Key Events From the Earth Institute

    American Geophysical Union 2017: Key Events From the Earth Institute

    A chronological guide to key talks and other events presented by Columbia University’s Earth Institute at the American Geophysical Union 2017 meeting. 

  • Where Is All That Carbon Dioxide Going?

    Where Is All That Carbon Dioxide Going?

    Concurrent with the announcement that human carbon emissions reached a new peak this year, Galen McKinley, a researcher at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, discusses the difficulties of tracking the sources and destinations of carbon dioxide.

  • National Climate Report: Q&A With Authors

    National Climate Report: Q&A With Authors

    Every four years Congress is provided with a state-of-the-art report on the impacts of climate change on the United States. The next National Climate Assessment is scheduled for 2018, but its scientific findings are scheduled to be published today. Here, two of its authors explain what to expect.

  • Giant Boulders on Bahamas Coast Are Evidence of Ancient Storms and Sea Level, Says Study

    Giant Boulders on Bahamas Coast Are Evidence of Ancient Storms and Sea Level, Says Study

    A new study says that storms of intensities seen today, combined with a few meters increase in sea level, were enough to transport coastal boulders weighing hundreds of tons more than 100,000 year ago.

  • In Biblical Land, Searching for Droughts Past and Future

    In Biblical Land, Searching for Droughts Past and Future

    Human-influenced climate warming has already reduced rainfall and increased evaporation in the Mideast, worsening water shortages. Up to now, climate scientists had projected that rainfall could decline another 20 percent by 2100. But the Dead Sea cores suggest that things could become much worse, much faster.

  • Photo Essay: The Dead Sea, Living Waters and Megadrought

    Photo Essay: The Dead Sea, Living Waters and Megadrought

    Thousands of years before Biblical times, during a period when temperatures were unusually high, the lands around the Dead Sea now occupied by Israel, Jordan and surrounding nations suffered megadroughts far worse than any recorded by humans. Warming climate now threatens to return such conditions to this already hard-pressed region.

  • How Climate Change Will Impact Investors

    How Climate Change Will Impact Investors

    A new report explores how advances in climate science can inform near-term investments in the global economy.

  • What the Vikings Can Teach Us About Adapting to Climate Change

    What the Vikings Can Teach Us About Adapting to Climate Change

    The rise of the Vikings was not a sudden event, but part of a long continuum of human development in the harsh conditions of northern Scandinavia. How did the Vikings make a living over the long term, and what might have influenced their brief florescence? Today, their experiences may provide a kind of object lesson…

  • The Earth Institute’s Newest Sustainability Program Begins in January 2018

    The Earth Institute’s Newest Sustainability Program Begins in January 2018

    Sustainability Science graduates will have the scientific know-how to help organizations improve their environmental performance.