climate science31
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Strange Bedfellows in the Climate Change Saga: The Quest for the Arctic Wolf
When you travel northbound on Alaska’s famous Dalton Highway heading toward the Arctic Sea, the northern edge of the world, you carry a radio to communicate with the enormous rigs that roar along the road, the giant trucks made famous by the History Channel’s Ice Road Truckers. Radio messages between truckers and non-truckers are simple…
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400 ppm World, Part 2: Rising Seas Come with Rising CO2
Every indication is that thermal expansion will not dominate rates of sea-level rise in the future. As Earth’s climate marches toward equilibration with present-day CO2 levels, the climate will continue to warm. And this warming threatens the stability of a potentially much, much larger source for sea-level rise — the world’s remaining ice sheets.
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400 ppm World, Part 1: Large Changes Still to Come
Why should society care that CO2 is now as high as 400 ppm? The reasons are multiple, but all trace back to the relationship between CO2 and temperature.
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Climate Scientist, Volcanologist Elected to National Academy of Sciences
Mark Cane, an expert on the El Niño climate pattern, and Terry Plank, an authority on explosive volcanoes—both scientists at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory–have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences. Membership in the National Academy, given for excellence in original scientific work, is one of the highest honors awarded to engineers and…
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‘Chasing Ice’: Watching History Unfold, and Disappear
Near the end of “Chasing Ice,” a hunk of glacier the size of lower Manhattan explodes, rolls and crashes into the sea. If that sounds like a spoiler, well, go see the movie and you’ll know you would have known it was coming anyway. And the beauty of the movie is that it will still…
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NASA’s Jim Hansen to Retire
James E. Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) and an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s Earth Institute, has announced he will retire as director of GISS this week to devote more time to his campaign to cut global carbon emissions. “Jim Hansen is a one of the true giants of climate…
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Greenhouse Gases Like Steroids for Extreme Weather
The fourth seminar in the Earth Institute’s Sustainable Development Seminar Series, “Ch Ch Ch Changes – recent trends in temperature extremes and hydroclimate,” brought together experts in the fields of climate change and hydrology to discuss emerging trends in global weather events.
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IRI to develop climate adaptation tools to help farmers in South and Southeast Asia
A new two-year climate change initiative, led by the International Research Institute for Climate and Society aims to help farmers in Indonesia, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic and Bangladesh reduce their vulnerability to climate risks.
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Columbia University to Monitor NYC Waterways
Dr. Wade McGillis of Columbia University’s Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory is the Lead Principal Investigator on a new project entitled “NYC Sustainable Urban Water Quality: the Earthwatch Institute Freshwater Program”, set to take place through January 2017. Dr. McGillis and his staff will be working in partnership with the Earth Watch Institute to deliver this…
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