climate science45
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Prescriptive science?
This is just a short post to draw your attention to John Tierney’s New York Times column on John Holdren’s appointment as Obama’s science advisor. Tierney contends that: “Dr. Holdren is certainly entitled to his views, but what concerns me is his tendency to conflate the science of climate change with prescriptions to cut greenhouse…
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Cooler, 2008 Still Ranks in the Top 10
A paper released last week by the World Meteorological Organization reports that the preliminary global mean temperature for 2008 is 14.3°C (57.7° F). This is significantly below 2007’s 14.7°C (58.5°F), and – as Time magazine reports – the coolest year since the turn of the century. Sadly, our half-hearted efforts at carbon offsetting cannot take…
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Climate change and the hydrological cycle
The prospects of significant and damaging changes in the hydrological cycle due to the increase in atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations were raised in earlier IPCC reports and restated more strongly in the most recent, 2007 Fourth Assessment Report (AR4). Now, the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) issued its final Synthesis and Assessment Report on…
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Abrupt Climate Change, How Likely?
Yesterday the USGS released “Abrupt Climate Change, Final Report, Synthesis and Assessment Product 3.4” of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program and the Subcommittee on Global Change Research. You can download the four page brochure or the full report here. Columbia scientists Edward R. Cook (the lead author) and Richard Seager, both from Lamont-Doherty Earth…
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Amazon Outflow is Found to Power Ocean Capture of Carbon Dioxide
River nourishes unexpected plant life, trapping greenhouse gas
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Climate Change, Seen Through the Eyes of Scientist and Poet
The work of a dozen Columbia Earth Institute scientists is featured in three new books—not all in the usual nonfiction format. In addition to two journalistic works on climate change, there is Time and Materials, by Robert Hass, former poet laureate of the United States. In “State of the Planet”–written for the fiftieth anniversary of…
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Water Expert Wins Presidential Award
Water-resources expert Casey Brown has been named one of 56 recipients of the 2006 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the highest honor given by the U.S. government that recognizes outstanding scientists and engineers in the early stages of their career. Brown is a scientist at the International Research Institute for Climate…
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Earth Institute Colleagues Share in the Nobel Peace Prize
The award of the Nobel Peace Prize jointly to Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) marks a watershed moment. It signals that people across the world and at all levels of society are recognizing that ongoing climate change is not only a long-term threat to the global environment, but also an…
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New Study of Glacial Retreat Shows that Much of the World Emerged from Last Ice Age at Nearly the Same Time
The end of the recurring, 100,000-year glacial cycles is one of the most prominent and readily identifiable features in records of the Earth’s recent climate history. Yet one of the most puzzling questions in climate science has been why different parts of the world, most notably Greenland, appear to have warmed at different times and…
On Saturday, October 17, 2026 from 10am to 4pm, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory Open House—our biggest, best science fun and discovery event of the year—will take place on our beautiful campus in Palisades, NY. Mark your calendar and join us for this free, family-friendly celebration of science! RSVP Today!