State of the Planet

News from the Columbia Climate School

Tag: glaciers17

  • Is the Highest Climb Sustainable, and Who Pays the Price?

    Is the Highest Climb Sustainable, and Who Pays the Price?

    The Khumbu Icefall on Mount Everest is perhaps the most well-known and notoriously dangerous glacial feature on the planet. In a fresh post on the Glacier Hub blog, the Earth Institute’s Ben Orlove, writing with anthropologist Pasang Yangjee Sherpa of Penn State, recounts a recent workshop held in Kathmandu to address the issues raised by…

  • Beneath an Icelandic Glacier, Another Eruption Brewing

    Beneath an Icelandic Glacier, Another Eruption Brewing

    The 2,000-meter tall Bárðarbunga volcano in Iceland is at risk of eruption, an event that could send a cloud of ash and steam high into the atmosphere and cause extensive disruptions in air travel, among other effects, according to media reports. Earth Institute scientist Ben Orlove looks into it on the Glacier Hub blog.

  • What Geology Has to Say About Global Warming

    What Geology Has to Say About Global Warming

    The most important lessons drawn from geology are that the earth’s climate can change radically, and rapidly. We can’t say precisely at what CO2 level we’re in danger of melting Antarctica, but that threshold could be reached in 150-300 years, if CO2 levels keep rising at the current rate.

  • Clock Is Ticking in West Antarctic

    Clock Is Ticking in West Antarctic

    “The high-resolution records that we’re getting and the high-resolution models we’re able to make now are sort of moving the questions a little bit closer into human, understandable time frames.”

  • Celebrate Earth Day with Extreme Science

    Celebrate Earth Day with Extreme Science

    Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory scientist Robin Bell will participate in a Google+ Hangout hosted by the White House on Tuesday, April 22 at 4:00 p.m. EDT. Bell, who will join the Hangout from New Zealand, is a polar scientist who studies sub-glacial lakes, ice sheet dynamics and tectonics in Earth’s polar regions.

  • Joanne Johnson and Lamont-Doherty, Collaborating on Glacial Research

    Joanne Johnson and Lamont-Doherty, Collaborating on Glacial Research

    New research about West Antarctica’s Pine Island Glacier suggests the glacier’s recent and rapid thinning and melting may continue for decades or centuries to come. British Antarctic Survey’s Joanne Johnson’s research, done in collaboration with scientists at Lamont-Doherty, might not have been possible without Lamont’s effort to promote women scientists.

  • When the World Ended in Ice

    When the World Ended in Ice

    A mile or so of glacial ice covering much of North America and plowing down from the north once terminated in the New York metropolitan area, at a front stretching roughly from exit 13 on the New Jersey Turnpike (Rahway), on across southern Staten Island, the Bensonhurst neighborhood of Brooklyn, and northeastward through Long Island. But exactly when that ice started…

  • An Interactive Map of Scientific Fieldwork

    An Interactive Map of Scientific Fieldwork

    Earth Institute scientists explore how the physical world works on every continent — over and under the arctic ice, in the grasslands of Mongolia, on volcanoes in Patagonia, over subduction zones in Papua New Guinea, and on the streets of New York City.

  • At the Bottom of the Bottom of the World

    At the Bottom of the Bottom of the World

    As we in North America emerge from a remarkably mild winter, the brief and sunny summer in the world’s deep south is drawing to a rapid close. Antarctica’s days are becoming shorter, and come the vernal equinox the South Pole will enter into its yearly hibernation—six months of dusk and night. Researchers from Columbia University…

Columbia campus skyline with text Columbia Climate School Class Day 2024 - Congratulations Graduates

Congratulations to our Columbia Climate School MA in Climate & Society Class of 2024! Learn about our May 10 Class Day celebration. #ColumbiaClimate2024

  • Is the Highest Climb Sustainable, and Who Pays the Price?

    Is the Highest Climb Sustainable, and Who Pays the Price?

    The Khumbu Icefall on Mount Everest is perhaps the most well-known and notoriously dangerous glacial feature on the planet. In a fresh post on the Glacier Hub blog, the Earth Institute’s Ben Orlove, writing with anthropologist Pasang Yangjee Sherpa of Penn State, recounts a recent workshop held in Kathmandu to address the issues raised by…

  • Beneath an Icelandic Glacier, Another Eruption Brewing

    Beneath an Icelandic Glacier, Another Eruption Brewing

    The 2,000-meter tall Bárðarbunga volcano in Iceland is at risk of eruption, an event that could send a cloud of ash and steam high into the atmosphere and cause extensive disruptions in air travel, among other effects, according to media reports. Earth Institute scientist Ben Orlove looks into it on the Glacier Hub blog.

  • What Geology Has to Say About Global Warming

    What Geology Has to Say About Global Warming

    The most important lessons drawn from geology are that the earth’s climate can change radically, and rapidly. We can’t say precisely at what CO2 level we’re in danger of melting Antarctica, but that threshold could be reached in 150-300 years, if CO2 levels keep rising at the current rate.

  • Clock Is Ticking in West Antarctic

    Clock Is Ticking in West Antarctic

    “The high-resolution records that we’re getting and the high-resolution models we’re able to make now are sort of moving the questions a little bit closer into human, understandable time frames.”

  • Celebrate Earth Day with Extreme Science

    Celebrate Earth Day with Extreme Science

    Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory scientist Robin Bell will participate in a Google+ Hangout hosted by the White House on Tuesday, April 22 at 4:00 p.m. EDT. Bell, who will join the Hangout from New Zealand, is a polar scientist who studies sub-glacial lakes, ice sheet dynamics and tectonics in Earth’s polar regions.

  • Joanne Johnson and Lamont-Doherty, Collaborating on Glacial Research

    Joanne Johnson and Lamont-Doherty, Collaborating on Glacial Research

    New research about West Antarctica’s Pine Island Glacier suggests the glacier’s recent and rapid thinning and melting may continue for decades or centuries to come. British Antarctic Survey’s Joanne Johnson’s research, done in collaboration with scientists at Lamont-Doherty, might not have been possible without Lamont’s effort to promote women scientists.

  • When the World Ended in Ice

    When the World Ended in Ice

    A mile or so of glacial ice covering much of North America and plowing down from the north once terminated in the New York metropolitan area, at a front stretching roughly from exit 13 on the New Jersey Turnpike (Rahway), on across southern Staten Island, the Bensonhurst neighborhood of Brooklyn, and northeastward through Long Island. But exactly when that ice started…

  • An Interactive Map of Scientific Fieldwork

    An Interactive Map of Scientific Fieldwork

    Earth Institute scientists explore how the physical world works on every continent — over and under the arctic ice, in the grasslands of Mongolia, on volcanoes in Patagonia, over subduction zones in Papua New Guinea, and on the streets of New York City.

  • At the Bottom of the Bottom of the World

    At the Bottom of the Bottom of the World

    As we in North America emerge from a remarkably mild winter, the brief and sunny summer in the world’s deep south is drawing to a rapid close. Antarctica’s days are becoming shorter, and come the vernal equinox the South Pole will enter into its yearly hibernation—six months of dusk and night. Researchers from Columbia University…