State of the Planet

News from the Columbia Climate School

Extreme Weather and Climate3

  • Tropical Rainfall from Hours to Millennia

    Tropical Rainfall from Hours to Millennia

    Most of Earth’s rainfall occurs in a tropical zonal band that circles the Earth. Understanding how this band will responds to climate change requires us to combine time scales from hours to millennia.

  • Bringing Together Storm Tracks and Clouds

    Bringing Together Storm Tracks and Clouds

    The storm tracks define the weather and climate in mid-latitudes. A recent workshop in Switzerland highlighted the important role that clouds play for the response of the storm tracks to climate change.

  • New York, New Orleans, Charlottetown and Everywhere Else

    New York, New Orleans, Charlottetown and Everywhere Else

    The disaster in New Orleans was almost uniquely awful in modern American history. But even if Katrina isn’t likely to happen everywhere, something can happen almost anywhere—including, we now know, New York. And further to the north and east.

  • Spontaneous Clumping of Tropical Clouds

    Spontaneous Clumping of Tropical Clouds

    If you take a look at nearly any satellite image of clouds in the tropics, you’ll notice that the clouds tend to be organized into clusters. One specific type of cloud organization called “self-aggregation.” Self-aggregation is the tendency of tropical clouds to spontaneously clump together, solely due to interactions between the clouds and the surrounding…

  • Head for the Hills

    Head for the Hills

    While we spent much of our time examining corals and swamps, studying sea level and storms, we became fascinated by a simple question: How did the hills of Exuma form?

  • The Extreme Pacific Climate Now

    The Extreme Pacific Climate Now

    The climate over the tropical Pacific is in an extreme state at the moment. That explains some of the extreme anomalies affecting the United States right now. It also gives us a window through which we can glimpse how even more dramatic and long-term climates of the distant past might have worked.

  • Sediment Cores from Exuma’s Shores

    Sediment Cores from Exuma’s Shores

    Because we know little about hurricane behavior during periods when Earth was warmer or colder than at present, it’s challenging to construct models to predict future trends in hurricane activity as Earth’s climate changes. To remedy this problem, researchers have been working to reconstruct records of hurricane strikes in the past.

  • Hurricane Histories and Carbon Mysteries

    Hurricane Histories and Carbon Mysteries

    The Bahamas might be a vacation destination for most people. But for us, they represent an excellent site to study several different questions about past, present and future climates.

  • Behind the Expected Quiet 2015 Hurricane Season

    Behind the Expected Quiet 2015 Hurricane Season

    On May 27, 2015, NOAA officially announced a likely below-normal Atlantic Hurricane season is coming up. The range for the possible numbers of major hurricanes is 0-2. What are the reasons behind it? How precise are these numbers?

Colorful banner image over Earth with text "Open House Discover Science, October 19, 2024, 10am to 4pm

Join us on Saturday, October 19, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. for the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory Open House! Celebrate 75 years of science with us at our beautiful Palisades, NY campus. The event is free and open to everyone, with a suggested $5 donation. Learn More and RSVP

  • Tropical Rainfall from Hours to Millennia

    Tropical Rainfall from Hours to Millennia

    Most of Earth’s rainfall occurs in a tropical zonal band that circles the Earth. Understanding how this band will responds to climate change requires us to combine time scales from hours to millennia.

  • Bringing Together Storm Tracks and Clouds

    Bringing Together Storm Tracks and Clouds

    The storm tracks define the weather and climate in mid-latitudes. A recent workshop in Switzerland highlighted the important role that clouds play for the response of the storm tracks to climate change.

  • New York, New Orleans, Charlottetown and Everywhere Else

    New York, New Orleans, Charlottetown and Everywhere Else

    The disaster in New Orleans was almost uniquely awful in modern American history. But even if Katrina isn’t likely to happen everywhere, something can happen almost anywhere—including, we now know, New York. And further to the north and east.

  • Spontaneous Clumping of Tropical Clouds

    Spontaneous Clumping of Tropical Clouds

    If you take a look at nearly any satellite image of clouds in the tropics, you’ll notice that the clouds tend to be organized into clusters. One specific type of cloud organization called “self-aggregation.” Self-aggregation is the tendency of tropical clouds to spontaneously clump together, solely due to interactions between the clouds and the surrounding…

  • Head for the Hills

    Head for the Hills

    While we spent much of our time examining corals and swamps, studying sea level and storms, we became fascinated by a simple question: How did the hills of Exuma form?

  • The Extreme Pacific Climate Now

    The Extreme Pacific Climate Now

    The climate over the tropical Pacific is in an extreme state at the moment. That explains some of the extreme anomalies affecting the United States right now. It also gives us a window through which we can glimpse how even more dramatic and long-term climates of the distant past might have worked.

  • Sediment Cores from Exuma’s Shores

    Sediment Cores from Exuma’s Shores

    Because we know little about hurricane behavior during periods when Earth was warmer or colder than at present, it’s challenging to construct models to predict future trends in hurricane activity as Earth’s climate changes. To remedy this problem, researchers have been working to reconstruct records of hurricane strikes in the past.

  • Hurricane Histories and Carbon Mysteries

    Hurricane Histories and Carbon Mysteries

    The Bahamas might be a vacation destination for most people. But for us, they represent an excellent site to study several different questions about past, present and future climates.

  • Behind the Expected Quiet 2015 Hurricane Season

    Behind the Expected Quiet 2015 Hurricane Season

    On May 27, 2015, NOAA officially announced a likely below-normal Atlantic Hurricane season is coming up. The range for the possible numbers of major hurricanes is 0-2. What are the reasons behind it? How precise are these numbers?