State of the Planet

News from the Columbia Climate School

climate39

  • Polar Climate Change Education Partnership Receives $5.6 Million Grant

    Polar Climate Change Education Partnership Receives $5.6 Million Grant

    The Columbia Climate Center led PoLAR Climate Change Education Partnership receives a $5.6 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF), one of six awards under the Climate Change Education Partnership-Phase II program.

  • Water Samples and Wildlife

    Water Samples and Wildlife

    After a day of coring on Tuesday, we decided to give our arms and backs a rest and collect water and plant samples. We take these samples so that we can characterize the chemical signatures of each plant type, and water from different parts of the system. Then, we can recognize those same signatures in…

  • Deepest core yet from Imnavait Creek!

    Deepest core yet from Imnavait Creek!

    Our first day in the field was a wild success! We visited Imnavait Creek Peatland, named for the small stream that drains out of it into the Kuparuk River. We chose this location because it has the potential to be much older than many other peatland sites. During the last ice age, the area of the…

  • Getting There = 0.5*fun

    Getting There = 0.5*fun

    Hello from the land of the midnight sun! We have just arrived by way of the famous Dalton Highway at Toolik Field Station, a Long Term Ecological Research site of the University of Alaska Fairbanks. We pulled up to the station just in time for dinner, a quick trip to the field station’s wood-fired sauna,…

  • A Major Legal Victory for Climate Science

    A Major Legal Victory for Climate Science

         Though most attention last week focused on the Supreme Court ruling upholding federal reform of the health-care system, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia issued the most important judicial decision on climate change in five years.  That decision upholds the Environmental Protection Agency’s power to regulate greenhouse gases, and it…

  • When the World Ended in Ice

    When the World Ended in Ice

    A mile or so of glacial ice covering much of North America and plowing down from the north once terminated in the New York metropolitan area, at a front stretching roughly from exit 13 on the New Jersey Turnpike (Rahway), on across southern Staten Island, the Bensonhurst neighborhood of Brooklyn, and northeastward through Long Island. But exactly when that ice started…

  • The Art of Flying

    The Art of Flying

    Flying. It is something we are almost all familiar with, and yet I expect few of us have really sat back to appreciate the actual science of it. For the past 10 weeks we have been flying, not just a day or two a week but five or six days a week depending on the…

  • The ‘Glory’ in Clouds and Other Amazing Sights!

    The ‘Glory’ in Clouds and Other Amazing Sights!

    If you look carefully at the picture below you will see a small shadow of our plane completely encircled in a rainbow. This optical phenomenon, called a “glory,” can develop when the plane flies directly between the sun and a cloud below. Flying over the ice sheet in the far northeast of Greenland we saw…

  • Our Best Flight Yet

    Our Best Flight Yet

    Evidence of the retreat of glaciers since the last glacial maximum (check), flying over sites of ancient Inuit, Norse and present day settlements (check), and a personal recollection of my own past in this location (check).

Photo of the Earth from space with the text "Lamont at AGU25" on top.

AGU25, the premier Earth and space science conference, takes place December 15-19, 2025 in New Orleans, Louisiana. This year’s theme—Where Science Connects Us—puts in focus how science depends on connection, from the lab to the field to the ballot box. Once again, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and Columbia Climate School scientists, experts, students, and educators are playing an active role, sharing our research and helping shape the future of our planet. #AGU25 Learn More

  • Polar Climate Change Education Partnership Receives $5.6 Million Grant

    Polar Climate Change Education Partnership Receives $5.6 Million Grant

    The Columbia Climate Center led PoLAR Climate Change Education Partnership receives a $5.6 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF), one of six awards under the Climate Change Education Partnership-Phase II program.

  • Water Samples and Wildlife

    Water Samples and Wildlife

    After a day of coring on Tuesday, we decided to give our arms and backs a rest and collect water and plant samples. We take these samples so that we can characterize the chemical signatures of each plant type, and water from different parts of the system. Then, we can recognize those same signatures in…

  • Deepest core yet from Imnavait Creek!

    Deepest core yet from Imnavait Creek!

    Our first day in the field was a wild success! We visited Imnavait Creek Peatland, named for the small stream that drains out of it into the Kuparuk River. We chose this location because it has the potential to be much older than many other peatland sites. During the last ice age, the area of the…

  • Getting There = 0.5*fun

    Getting There = 0.5*fun

    Hello from the land of the midnight sun! We have just arrived by way of the famous Dalton Highway at Toolik Field Station, a Long Term Ecological Research site of the University of Alaska Fairbanks. We pulled up to the station just in time for dinner, a quick trip to the field station’s wood-fired sauna,…

  • A Major Legal Victory for Climate Science

    A Major Legal Victory for Climate Science

         Though most attention last week focused on the Supreme Court ruling upholding federal reform of the health-care system, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia issued the most important judicial decision on climate change in five years.  That decision upholds the Environmental Protection Agency’s power to regulate greenhouse gases, and it…

  • When the World Ended in Ice

    When the World Ended in Ice

    A mile or so of glacial ice covering much of North America and plowing down from the north once terminated in the New York metropolitan area, at a front stretching roughly from exit 13 on the New Jersey Turnpike (Rahway), on across southern Staten Island, the Bensonhurst neighborhood of Brooklyn, and northeastward through Long Island. But exactly when that ice started…

  • The Art of Flying

    The Art of Flying

    Flying. It is something we are almost all familiar with, and yet I expect few of us have really sat back to appreciate the actual science of it. For the past 10 weeks we have been flying, not just a day or two a week but five or six days a week depending on the…

  • The ‘Glory’ in Clouds and Other Amazing Sights!

    The ‘Glory’ in Clouds and Other Amazing Sights!

    If you look carefully at the picture below you will see a small shadow of our plane completely encircled in a rainbow. This optical phenomenon, called a “glory,” can develop when the plane flies directly between the sun and a cloud below. Flying over the ice sheet in the far northeast of Greenland we saw…

  • Our Best Flight Yet

    Our Best Flight Yet

    Evidence of the retreat of glaciers since the last glacial maximum (check), flying over sites of ancient Inuit, Norse and present day settlements (check), and a personal recollection of my own past in this location (check).