State of the Planet

News from the Columbia Climate School

Global Warming36

  • Gore, Sachs Address Way Forward on Climate Change

    On February 20, 2007, Jeffrey D. Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, and former U.S. Vice President Al Gore spoke to a packed house in Columbia’s Low Library Rotunda to address the next steps needed to mitigate the global climate crisis. Gore called upon younger generations to speak up and demand change…

  • Alaskans Feel the Heat of Global Warming

    New Study Reveals Alaskans View Global Warming as Serious Threat

  • New Study Finds World Temperatures Approaching Ancient Levels

    A new study led by James Hansen of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, a part of The Earth Institute, finds that the world’s temperature is reaching a level that has not been seen in thousands of years. The study was published in the September 26, 2006 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy…

  • Columbia Student Advises Community on How to Cut Greenhouse Gases

    by Jessie Stensland Global warming is a hot issue these days. Former Vice President Al Gore is getting rave reviews for his movie about climate change. President George Bush finally admitted last year that human activity “may” be causing global warming. While the federal government has been resistant toward taking substantial steps to curb the…

  • It’s 2025. Where Do Most People Live?

    Researchers at the Center for Climate Systems Research (CCSR), a part of The Earth Institute, have developed a high-resolution map of projected population change for the year 2025. The innovative map shows a world with large areas of population loss in parts of Eastern Europe and Asia, but significant gains elsewhere. The work, Mapping the…

  • New Study of Glacial Retreat Shows that Much of the World Emerged from Last Ice Age at Nearly the Same Time

    The end of the recurring, 100,000-year glacial cycles is one of the most prominent and readily identifiable features in records of the Earth’s recent climate history. Yet one of the most puzzling questions in climate science has been why different parts of the world, most notably Greenland, appear to have warmed at different times and…

  • Researchers Assess Risks Associated with Living in Low-Lying Coastal Areas

    For many, sea-level rise is a remote and distant threat faced by people like the residents of the Tuvalu Islands in the South Pacific, where the highest point of land is only 5 meters (15 feet) above sea level and tidal floods occasionally cover their crops in seawater. Now, however, a recently published study by…

  • Could Reducing Global Dimming Mean a Hotter, Dryer World?

    Despite concerns over global warming, scientists have discovered something that may have actually limited the impact of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere in recent years by reducing the amount of sunlight reaching the surface of the Earth. In research they published last year in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, a team led by Beate Liepert…

  • Study Offers Preview of Ice Sheet Melting, Rapid Climate Changes

    Behavior of Scandinavian Ice Sheet at the end of the last Ice Age may preview loss of Greenland Ice Sheet due to global warming

Colorful banner with city: "MR 2025: Mobility, Adaptation, and Wellbeing in a Changing Climate."
  • Gore, Sachs Address Way Forward on Climate Change

    On February 20, 2007, Jeffrey D. Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, and former U.S. Vice President Al Gore spoke to a packed house in Columbia’s Low Library Rotunda to address the next steps needed to mitigate the global climate crisis. Gore called upon younger generations to speak up and demand change…

  • Alaskans Feel the Heat of Global Warming

    New Study Reveals Alaskans View Global Warming as Serious Threat

  • New Study Finds World Temperatures Approaching Ancient Levels

    A new study led by James Hansen of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, a part of The Earth Institute, finds that the world’s temperature is reaching a level that has not been seen in thousands of years. The study was published in the September 26, 2006 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy…

  • Columbia Student Advises Community on How to Cut Greenhouse Gases

    by Jessie Stensland Global warming is a hot issue these days. Former Vice President Al Gore is getting rave reviews for his movie about climate change. President George Bush finally admitted last year that human activity “may” be causing global warming. While the federal government has been resistant toward taking substantial steps to curb the…

  • It’s 2025. Where Do Most People Live?

    Researchers at the Center for Climate Systems Research (CCSR), a part of The Earth Institute, have developed a high-resolution map of projected population change for the year 2025. The innovative map shows a world with large areas of population loss in parts of Eastern Europe and Asia, but significant gains elsewhere. The work, Mapping the…

  • New Study of Glacial Retreat Shows that Much of the World Emerged from Last Ice Age at Nearly the Same Time

    The end of the recurring, 100,000-year glacial cycles is one of the most prominent and readily identifiable features in records of the Earth’s recent climate history. Yet one of the most puzzling questions in climate science has been why different parts of the world, most notably Greenland, appear to have warmed at different times and…

  • Researchers Assess Risks Associated with Living in Low-Lying Coastal Areas

    For many, sea-level rise is a remote and distant threat faced by people like the residents of the Tuvalu Islands in the South Pacific, where the highest point of land is only 5 meters (15 feet) above sea level and tidal floods occasionally cover their crops in seawater. Now, however, a recently published study by…

  • Could Reducing Global Dimming Mean a Hotter, Dryer World?

    Despite concerns over global warming, scientists have discovered something that may have actually limited the impact of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere in recent years by reducing the amount of sunlight reaching the surface of the Earth. In research they published last year in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, a team led by Beate Liepert…

  • Study Offers Preview of Ice Sheet Melting, Rapid Climate Changes

    Behavior of Scandinavian Ice Sheet at the end of the last Ice Age may preview loss of Greenland Ice Sheet due to global warming