extreme weather7
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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.
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Post-Sandy Rebuilding for Resiliency: Lessons From Long Beach, NY
It is not that people have gotten amnesia and don’t remember the damage of Hurricane Sandy. Some homes are still being rebuilt and some people are still displaced. Moreover, the people who lead the shore towns in Long Island and New Jersey are speaking the language of climate resiliency.
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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…
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Initiative on Extreme Weather and Climate Kick-Off
This week marks the launch of the new Columbia Initiative on Extreme Weather and Climate, a cross-disciplinary collaboration between a variety of centers, research groups and individuals from across Columbia University. The Initiative, led by Adam Sobel, kicked off on Monday evening with a World Leaders Forum panel event in Low Library. Panelists discussed a…
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Eye on the Storm
Atmospheric scientist Adam Sobel is author of the new book “Storm Surge: Hurricane Sandy, Our Changing Climate and Extreme Weather of the Past and Future.” Sobel was one of the first researchers to explain to media and the public what might be brewing, before the storm hit. In the aftermath, he looked closely at the…
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Northeast Already Hit by Climate Change, Says Major U.S. Report
Increase in Big Storms, Sea Level, Outpaces Rest of Nation
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Disaster Readiness Center Joins Earth Institute
Shaping Local, Global Responses to Natural and Manmade Threats
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Sandy’s Surge Affected More Than 1.4 Million in 11 States
Based on a model used by the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the map shows coastal areas likely to have been inundated by the storm surge resulting from Hurricane Sandy, in relationship to residential population.
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Getting Better Prepared for the Next Big Storm
Super Storm Sandy was an unusually powerful and destructive storm because of a rare constellation of factors, but scientists predict that we can expect more extreme weather events due to the effects of climate change. Has the super storm made us take warnings about extreme weather more seriously?

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