State of the Planet

News from the Columbia Climate School

Global Warming28

  • Time and Technology and the Really Down Deep

    Time and Technology and the Really Down Deep

    Two years before Google Earth was launched, Bill Ryan and Suzanne Carbotte, oceanographers at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, began a project to transform the way we look at the ocean. They started collecting reams of data that had been gathered by scientists sailing on research vessels all over the world since the 1980s, one ship…

  • Rhone Glacier Finely Tuned to Climate Changes

    Rhone Glacier Finely Tuned to Climate Changes

    By chiseling hunks of stone from recently exposed bedrock near the edge of the Rhone Glacier, scientists were able to decipher the comings and goings of the ice over the past 11,000 years. That should help predict what will happen to glaciers in the warming world to come.

  • Cities Lead on Climate Problems, and Solutions

    New Report Analyzes Urban Areas Across the World

  • Young Citizens Lawsuit Seeks to Compel US Action on Climate Change

    A lawsuit filed in April on behalf of citizens too young to vote takes a novel approach in seeking to force the United States government to mitigate the most serious impacts of human-induced climate change. The petitioners argue that, in failing to address climate change, the federal government has abandoned its fiduciary responsibility to affirmatively…

  • Tree Rings Open Door on 1,100 Years of El Niño

    Tree Rings Open Door on 1,100 Years of El Niño

    Scientists have used tree-ring data from the American Southwest to reconstruct a 1,100-year history of the El Niño cycle that shows that, when the earth warms, the climate acts up. The research may improve scientists’ ability to predict future climate and the effects of global warming.

  • Rising Seas Pushing Island Nations to the Brink

    Rising sea levels caused by global warming could displace millions of people worldwide who are living on low-lying coastlines, and it may prove fatal to some small island nations. At a conference at Columbia Law School, legal experts explored the implications for the people whose homelands could become uninhabitable within a matter of decades.

  • The American Climate Gap

    The American Climate Gap

    There’s a growing gap between scientists’ view of climate change and that of the general public, and it has less to do with scientific “illiteracy,” and more to do with the psychology of how people frame their understanding of the world, say the authors of a paper just published in the journal American Psychologist.

  • Growing Up: Water Efficiency and Sunless Farming

    Growing Up: Water Efficiency and Sunless Farming

    As Earth’s population continues to grow and a dynamic global climate shifts our expectations of where and when food can be grown, scientists are trying to find new ways to get more from less.

  • Some People’s Climate Beliefs Shift With Weather

    Study Shows Daily Malleability on a Long-Term Question

Blue banner with NYC background: "Columbia Climate School Class Day 2025 -- Congratulations Graduates"
  • Time and Technology and the Really Down Deep

    Time and Technology and the Really Down Deep

    Two years before Google Earth was launched, Bill Ryan and Suzanne Carbotte, oceanographers at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, began a project to transform the way we look at the ocean. They started collecting reams of data that had been gathered by scientists sailing on research vessels all over the world since the 1980s, one ship…

  • Rhone Glacier Finely Tuned to Climate Changes

    Rhone Glacier Finely Tuned to Climate Changes

    By chiseling hunks of stone from recently exposed bedrock near the edge of the Rhone Glacier, scientists were able to decipher the comings and goings of the ice over the past 11,000 years. That should help predict what will happen to glaciers in the warming world to come.

  • Cities Lead on Climate Problems, and Solutions

    New Report Analyzes Urban Areas Across the World

  • Young Citizens Lawsuit Seeks to Compel US Action on Climate Change

    A lawsuit filed in April on behalf of citizens too young to vote takes a novel approach in seeking to force the United States government to mitigate the most serious impacts of human-induced climate change. The petitioners argue that, in failing to address climate change, the federal government has abandoned its fiduciary responsibility to affirmatively…

  • Tree Rings Open Door on 1,100 Years of El Niño

    Tree Rings Open Door on 1,100 Years of El Niño

    Scientists have used tree-ring data from the American Southwest to reconstruct a 1,100-year history of the El Niño cycle that shows that, when the earth warms, the climate acts up. The research may improve scientists’ ability to predict future climate and the effects of global warming.

  • Rising Seas Pushing Island Nations to the Brink

    Rising sea levels caused by global warming could displace millions of people worldwide who are living on low-lying coastlines, and it may prove fatal to some small island nations. At a conference at Columbia Law School, legal experts explored the implications for the people whose homelands could become uninhabitable within a matter of decades.

  • The American Climate Gap

    The American Climate Gap

    There’s a growing gap between scientists’ view of climate change and that of the general public, and it has less to do with scientific “illiteracy,” and more to do with the psychology of how people frame their understanding of the world, say the authors of a paper just published in the journal American Psychologist.

  • Growing Up: Water Efficiency and Sunless Farming

    Growing Up: Water Efficiency and Sunless Farming

    As Earth’s population continues to grow and a dynamic global climate shifts our expectations of where and when food can be grown, scientists are trying to find new ways to get more from less.

  • Some People’s Climate Beliefs Shift With Weather

    Study Shows Daily Malleability on a Long-Term Question