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In Ancient Scottish Tree Rings, a Cautionary Tale on Climate, Politics and Survival
Using old tree rings and archival documents, historians and climate scientists have detailed an extreme cold period in Scotland in the 1690s that caused immense suffering. It may have lessons for Brexit-era politics.
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Within Sight of New York City, an Old-Growth Forest Faces Storms and Sea Level Rise
On a peninsula within sight of New York City, researchers are studying trees dating as far back as the early 1800s. Rising seas and more powerful storms, both fueled by climate change, could eventually spell their end.
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Photo Essay: An Old-Growth Forest Near New York City Faces Storms and Sea-Level Rise
Centuries-old trees on a peninsula near New York City could provide an important record of past storms. Researchers recently traveled there to sample the trees before they are wiped out by rising seas and powerful storms.
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New Tree Ring Analysis Method May Open Insights to Past Climate
Measurements of stable isotopes in tree rings may expand the climate information that scientists can get from old trees.
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New Class on Predicting the Effects of Climate Change on Global Forests
Brendan Buckley discusses his course, Predicting the Effects of Climate Change on Global Forests, which is offered this spring.
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Photo Essay: High in the Hills, Climate May Challenge Forests
Forests in the south-central United States are some of the country’s most productive and diverse. They also sit in a warming “hole”—an area where the progressive rise in temperature affecting most of the continent hasn’t yet taken hold. A team from Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory is studying how these forests might shift—or even disappear—when…
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How Will Shifting Climate Change U.S. Forests?
One foggy spring morning just after a hard rain, Park Williams was tromping through the woods deep in Arkansas’ Ozark Mountains. Toiling down a steep slope, he supposedly was keeping a simultaneous eye out for rattlesnakes, copperheads, poison ivy and big old trees. Williams seemed mostly focused on the trees, though; attention to the other…
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A New Global Team Tracks Temperature Change Through Time
A new international consortium of scientists is bringing the history of temperature fluctuations across the entire Northern Hemisphere to life.
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Translating Nature’s Historians: The Tree Ring Lab Turns 40
In its first 40 years, the Lamont Tree Ring Lab tracked changing climates around the world, building an international reputation as a global leader in research, training and technology.
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
