State of the Planet

News from the Columbia Climate School

climate53

  • Reflections on Haiti

    Earlier this month, I was lucky enough to travel to Haiti to install a weather monitoring station, as well as conduct streamflow measurements and water quality assessments with Water Center employee Lior Asaf.  Traveling to Haiti gave me my first exposure to how water and climate issues are affecting poor and developing countries, as well…

  • Illuminating the Science: Art and Climate Change

    On Thursday I’ll be attending Illuminating the Science: Art and Climate Change. The event’s project is surely ambitious.  It claims not only that climate data might be better communicated, or made more robust, through the arts, but that indeed “the landscape of numbers can be populated by dreams in the form of images, dance or music,…

  • How much and how fast: Seminar on changing sea levels

    Professor Benjamin Horton shared his research on how quickly sea levels have increased over time, an important part of putting together the climate change puzzle.

  • Some Thoughts About Dust, Rio Gallegos

    I’ve been to Stewart Island, off the southern tip of New Zealand, but I’m pretty sure this is the furthest south I’ve been. Cool! We’re here in Rio Gallegos. We’ve just rendezvoused with Dr. Jay Quade, a geologist from the University of Arizona, and his wife Barbara. We’ve got two cars, a bunch of boxes…

  • Climate, Fires and Birds: How is the Tundra Changing?

    Natalie Boelman is an ecologist at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory who studies the effects of climate change on organisms throughout the food chain. She first visited the Alaskan Arctic in 2001, and will return to the North Slope this spring and summer to continue a wildfire-mapping project and to set up a field study that will…

  • So Much Depends on Sea Ice

    Where we work and how we get there depends on the sea ice. The Oden is a powerful icebreaker but it is often faster and more fuel-efficient to go around heavy sea ice then to chop our way through. If the sea ice is several feet thick, we often choose to detour. We actually consult…

  • Over Pine Island Glacier, West Antarctica

    PUNTA ARENAS, Chile–After flying for several hours over a windswept Southern Ocean, the mission director announces that we will be slowly descending towards Antarctica’s Pine Island Glacier. Just below are the Hudson Mountains, a small group of extinct volcanoes poking through the ice. As we approach our survey area, John Sonntag from NASA’s flight facility…

  • Sea Change

    Bärbel Hönisch, an expert on ocean acidification at Columbia, will speak after a screening of the film “A Sea Change” this Thursday.

  • California’s other crisis

    The “Golden” State doesn’t seem so golden these days. LA’s recent wildfires and Sacramento’s recent budget crises have left a dark cloud hanging over the state. Compounding the state’s financial woes and charred image is a problem potentially even more challenging: drought. Since 2000, the state’s reservoirs have been depleted and current climate change projections…

Columbia Climate School is bringing bold ideas, leading experts, and groundbreaking research to Climate Week NYC. Explore our events, stories, and updates as we help shape the conversation on climate action across New York City.

  • Reflections on Haiti

    Earlier this month, I was lucky enough to travel to Haiti to install a weather monitoring station, as well as conduct streamflow measurements and water quality assessments with Water Center employee Lior Asaf.  Traveling to Haiti gave me my first exposure to how water and climate issues are affecting poor and developing countries, as well…

  • Illuminating the Science: Art and Climate Change

    On Thursday I’ll be attending Illuminating the Science: Art and Climate Change. The event’s project is surely ambitious.  It claims not only that climate data might be better communicated, or made more robust, through the arts, but that indeed “the landscape of numbers can be populated by dreams in the form of images, dance or music,…

  • How much and how fast: Seminar on changing sea levels

    Professor Benjamin Horton shared his research on how quickly sea levels have increased over time, an important part of putting together the climate change puzzle.

  • Some Thoughts About Dust, Rio Gallegos

    I’ve been to Stewart Island, off the southern tip of New Zealand, but I’m pretty sure this is the furthest south I’ve been. Cool! We’re here in Rio Gallegos. We’ve just rendezvoused with Dr. Jay Quade, a geologist from the University of Arizona, and his wife Barbara. We’ve got two cars, a bunch of boxes…

  • Climate, Fires and Birds: How is the Tundra Changing?

    Natalie Boelman is an ecologist at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory who studies the effects of climate change on organisms throughout the food chain. She first visited the Alaskan Arctic in 2001, and will return to the North Slope this spring and summer to continue a wildfire-mapping project and to set up a field study that will…

  • So Much Depends on Sea Ice

    Where we work and how we get there depends on the sea ice. The Oden is a powerful icebreaker but it is often faster and more fuel-efficient to go around heavy sea ice then to chop our way through. If the sea ice is several feet thick, we often choose to detour. We actually consult…

  • Over Pine Island Glacier, West Antarctica

    PUNTA ARENAS, Chile–After flying for several hours over a windswept Southern Ocean, the mission director announces that we will be slowly descending towards Antarctica’s Pine Island Glacier. Just below are the Hudson Mountains, a small group of extinct volcanoes poking through the ice. As we approach our survey area, John Sonntag from NASA’s flight facility…

  • Sea Change

    Bärbel Hönisch, an expert on ocean acidification at Columbia, will speak after a screening of the film “A Sea Change” this Thursday.

  • California’s other crisis

    The “Golden” State doesn’t seem so golden these days. LA’s recent wildfires and Sacramento’s recent budget crises have left a dark cloud hanging over the state. Compounding the state’s financial woes and charred image is a problem potentially even more challenging: drought. Since 2000, the state’s reservoirs have been depleted and current climate change projections…