climate47
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Earth, Water and Sky –A Conversation with Pierre Gentine, a new Columbia Water Center Scientist
Columbia Water Center welcomes Pierre Gentine, Assistant Professor of Applied Mathematics at Columbia University’s School of Engineering and Applied Science, as an affiliate researcher. Pierre’s groundbreaking research on the way soil moisture interacts with the atmosphere has implications for many of CWCs initiatives—from developing more efficient irrigation systems, to water resource management, to understanding floods.…
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Switchyard Project: New Sampling Record
On May 10, we celebrated the sampling of our 10th station yesterday. These are more stations than we were ever able to get water samples from. Because of the ongoing good weather, we will certainly get one more station today, and hopefully many more during the next couple of days. So watch the posted video and celebrate with…
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Switchyard Project: Sampling Success
The past 1½ weeks have been very successful. Our team from Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory was able to obtain water samples from eight stations, while the team from the University of Washington has already broken their all-time record of the past years of 18 stations. Today (May 7) is actually the first day we can’t fly…
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Switchyard Project: Rescue Operation
Four people who tried to ski from the North Pole to Greenland got stuck on the ice and ran out of food. Since our team was out on the ice for sampling close to their location, we stopped sampling and picked them up.
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Switchyard Project: It’s all about the weather
One can only imagine what kind of a pilot one has to be to fly in the arctic regions and land on sea-ice under weather conditions as we have experienced already – fog above the ice and clouds covering the area with very low visibility.
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How to reduce weather risk (and make a little green)
People understand that weather can affect certain markets — especially energy prices and other commodities — but its impact on portfolios more broadly might surprise. Just last week, a new study was released that estimated $485 billion of annual weather-related economic impact in the United States alone. Another calculated the effect at nearly 10 times that amount…
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Switchyard Project: Day 1 – Alert, Alert, Alert
The first day of our operation is usually filled with a lot of work preparing and testing the instruments we brought up here, preparing the airplanes, loading our equipment into the planes, setting up the equipment in the laboratory and preparing the sampling containers. Since our operation requires drilling holes through the sea ice, we…
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Switchyard Project: In Transit…Part 2
April 27, 2011: We spent the night in Thule in the North Star Hotel. Before we could leave Thule the crew had to load the cargo back into the C130. Equipment is loaded onto palettes, and these palettes are loaded through the rear door into the plane. A C130 can handle four palettes with two tons of cargo…
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Switchyard Project: In Transit…Part 1
Bags are packed and ready to go. April 25, 2011: We left Lamont in the afternoon to Schenectady, close to Scotia where the 109th Airlift Wing of the New York Air National Guard is located that will fly us up to CFS Alert. That unit provides extensive logistical support for all U.S. science operations in the arctic and…
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
