Tag: climate science41
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Who cares about the Southern Ocean?
Scientists are often asked to explain why their work is important. I have been asked this question several times since the publication of a paper entitled “Wind driven upwelling in the Southern Ocean and the deglacial rise in atmospheric CO2” (Science, 13 March, 2009). I’m going to try to answer it here. In the paper…
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Snowstorms in a Warming World
On March 2 snowstorms hit the eastern seaboard, coinciding with a widely publicized protest against the coal industry in Washington DC . This garnered some attention, with Time noting the irony of people chanting about global warming while shivering in the cold and snow. One might wonder if a March snowstorm is inconsistent with a…
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Deep Thoughts on Deep Convection
Deep convection refers to the thermally driven turbulent mixing that moves air parcels from the lower to the upper atmosphere. In the tropics, this generally involves the vertical ascent of warm moist air and, ultimately, precipitation. But while some aspects of deep convection are well understood, others remain a mystery. Dr. Larissa Back, a NOAA…
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La Niña Conditions to Continue?
According to Tony Barnston of the IRI, the La Niña conditions which began in December are likely to continue until mid-March. Click on the graph below for a better look at the probabilistic forecast. As mentioned in an earlier post, La Niña events are characterized by unusually cold sea surface temperatures (SST) in the central…
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When will we see a sea level rise of three feet?
Recently, the Columbia Climate Center had the chance to participate in an event aiming to improve public awareness on climate change. On the weekend of the 6th and 7th of February, the CCC had a table in the Polar Fair in the International Polar Weekend at the American Museum of Natural History. It was a…
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Interdisciplinary Work: Big Challenge, But Not Impossible
Health professionals, epidemiologists, health management workers and health policymakers are increasingly concerned about the potential impact that climate variability and climate change could have on public health. However, many public health professionals are not yet aware of the ways in which climate information can help them manage the impacts of climate on their work. At…
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Arctic Sea Ice in a Warmer Climate
Dr. Jennifer Kay, a post doc at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), was at Lamont recently to give a talk entitled “Mechanisms for Recent Sea Loss.” Kay’s talk offered a detailed explanation of recent sea loss in the Arctic, including the all-time low experienced in 2007. Kay also outlined mechanisms that may have…
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Low-cost water management in Ethiopia
Water capture and storage for irrigation has been an ongoing theme of research in Columbia’s earth and environmental engineering department, but Professor Upmanu Lall has recently taken things a step further. With funding from the Pulitzer family, Lall challenged a group of students in his senior engineering course to design a low-cost system of water…
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Lonnie Thompson’s 7,000 Meters of Ice
I’ve been meaning to blog about Lonnie Thompson’s visit to Lamont last week; I suppose it’s the frigid temperatures here in New York that have kept melting tropical glaciers on my own back burner. For those who don’t know, Lonnie Thompson runs the Ice Core Paleoclimatology Research Group at the Ohio State’s Byrd Polar Research…
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