State of the Planet

News from the Columbia Climate School

Groundwater2

  • Drought: A Wide-Angle Picture

    Drought: A Wide-Angle Picture

    A new book, the second in a series of primers with the Earth Institute imprint, provides an interdisciplinary overview drought, bringing together many fields including climate science, hydrology and ecology.

  • How Road Salt Harms the Environment

    How Road Salt Harms the Environment

    Recent research indicates that salt is accumulating in the environment and poses an emerging threat both to ecosystems and human health.

  • How Climate Change Will Alter Our Food

    How Climate Change Will Alter Our Food

    As the world population continues to grow, global demand for food could increase dramatically by 2050. Yet the impacts of climate change threaten to decrease the quantity and quality of our food supplies.

  • Global Environment Report Card Sees Dirty Air, Failing Fisheries

    Global Environment Report Card Sees Dirty Air, Failing Fisheries

    Many countries are making progress on improving water sanitation and protecting marine ecosystems. But air pollution continues as a leading health problem in many nations, and fisheries are deteriorating almost everywhere.

  • In Biblical Land, Searching for Droughts Past and Future

    In Biblical Land, Searching for Droughts Past and Future

    Human-influenced climate warming has already reduced rainfall and increased evaporation in the Mideast, worsening water shortages. Up to now, climate scientists had projected that rainfall could decline another 20 percent by 2100. But the Dead Sea cores suggest that things could become much worse, much faster.

  • To Ease Mexico City’s Water Woes, Look up, Study Suggests

    To Ease Mexico City’s Water Woes, Look up, Study Suggests

    For Mexico City’s biggest businesses and its poorest neighborhoods, rainwater harvesting could help address an enormous water crisis plaguing the city, a recent Columbia Water Center study found.

  • Side Trip to Hiron Point, Sundarbans

    Side Trip to Hiron Point, Sundarbans

    After helping Chris an Dan with soil salinity and reflectance measurement, Humayun, Liz and I moved onto the smaller M.B. Mewl to sail through the Sundarban Mangrove Forest to service our GPS station at Hiron Point.

  • Study Links Groundwater Changes to Fracking

    Distance and Topography Play Roles in Pennsylvania

  • Construction in the Swamp

    Construction in the Swamp

    Despite the miserable weather and ongoing rain, we constructed a wooden structure to hold the GPS receivers, solar panels and other electronic equipment between the three wells. We worked out how and where to mount the antennas and had parts made to accomplish it. Although I had to leave before it was completed, the team…

  • Drought: A Wide-Angle Picture

    Drought: A Wide-Angle Picture

    A new book, the second in a series of primers with the Earth Institute imprint, provides an interdisciplinary overview drought, bringing together many fields including climate science, hydrology and ecology.

  • How Road Salt Harms the Environment

    How Road Salt Harms the Environment

    Recent research indicates that salt is accumulating in the environment and poses an emerging threat both to ecosystems and human health.

  • How Climate Change Will Alter Our Food

    How Climate Change Will Alter Our Food

    As the world population continues to grow, global demand for food could increase dramatically by 2050. Yet the impacts of climate change threaten to decrease the quantity and quality of our food supplies.

  • Global Environment Report Card Sees Dirty Air, Failing Fisheries

    Global Environment Report Card Sees Dirty Air, Failing Fisheries

    Many countries are making progress on improving water sanitation and protecting marine ecosystems. But air pollution continues as a leading health problem in many nations, and fisheries are deteriorating almost everywhere.

  • In Biblical Land, Searching for Droughts Past and Future

    In Biblical Land, Searching for Droughts Past and Future

    Human-influenced climate warming has already reduced rainfall and increased evaporation in the Mideast, worsening water shortages. Up to now, climate scientists had projected that rainfall could decline another 20 percent by 2100. But the Dead Sea cores suggest that things could become much worse, much faster.

  • To Ease Mexico City’s Water Woes, Look up, Study Suggests

    To Ease Mexico City’s Water Woes, Look up, Study Suggests

    For Mexico City’s biggest businesses and its poorest neighborhoods, rainwater harvesting could help address an enormous water crisis plaguing the city, a recent Columbia Water Center study found.

  • Side Trip to Hiron Point, Sundarbans

    Side Trip to Hiron Point, Sundarbans

    After helping Chris an Dan with soil salinity and reflectance measurement, Humayun, Liz and I moved onto the smaller M.B. Mewl to sail through the Sundarban Mangrove Forest to service our GPS station at Hiron Point.

  • Study Links Groundwater Changes to Fracking

    Distance and Topography Play Roles in Pennsylvania

  • Construction in the Swamp

    Construction in the Swamp

    Despite the miserable weather and ongoing rain, we constructed a wooden structure to hold the GPS receivers, solar panels and other electronic equipment between the three wells. We worked out how and where to mount the antennas and had parts made to accomplish it. Although I had to leave before it was completed, the team…