State of the Planet

News from the Columbia Climate School

ice cores

  • Science and Heritage: The Ice Memory Foundation’s Mission for the Planet

    Science and Heritage: The Ice Memory Foundation’s Mission for the Planet

    As climate change threatens an uncertain future, an international foundation is collecting and saving stories from the past in an unusual format: ice cores from disappearing glaciers that act as archives for both data and memories.

  • Glacial Ice Cores Reveal 15,000 Year Old Microbes

    Glacial Ice Cores Reveal 15,000 Year Old Microbes

    Ancient ice contains a rich microbial record going back thousands of years. Recent advances have provided tools to study their genes and evolution, but climate change threatens to erase this frozen archive.

  • Perfume Fragrances Found in Glacial Ice on Russia’s Mount Elbrus

    Perfume Fragrances Found in Glacial Ice on Russia’s Mount Elbrus

    An ice core records the dramatic increase in the use of perfumes and other personal care products between the 1930s and 2005.

  • Glaciers May Record the Story of the Coronavirus Pandemic

    Glaciers May Record the Story of the Coronavirus Pandemic

    Reductions in human emissions and changes in atmospheric composition during the coronavirus pandemic might be observed in future glacial ice cores.

  • Accounting for Volcanoes Using Tools of Economics

    Accounting for Volcanoes Using Tools of Economics

    Climate scientists teamed up with an econometrics expert to develop an innovative new method for picking out past volcanic eruptions in temperature reconstructions going back millennia and gauging their impact on the climate.

  • Crossing 400ppm: Welcome to the Pliocene

    Crossing 400ppm: Welcome to the Pliocene

    “Right now, we’re living in a world of a Pliocene atmosphere,” scientist Maureen Raymo of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory tells the Yale Forum on Climate Change and the Media. “But the whole rest of the climate system — the oceans are trying to catch-up, the ice sheets are waning, and everything is trying to catch…

Colorful banner image over Earth with text "Open House Discover Science, October 19, 2024, 10am to 4pm

Join us on Saturday, October 19, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. for the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory Open House! Celebrate 75 years of science with us at our beautiful Palisades, NY campus. The event is free and open to everyone, with a suggested $5 donation. Learn More and RSVP

  • Science and Heritage: The Ice Memory Foundation’s Mission for the Planet

    Science and Heritage: The Ice Memory Foundation’s Mission for the Planet

    As climate change threatens an uncertain future, an international foundation is collecting and saving stories from the past in an unusual format: ice cores from disappearing glaciers that act as archives for both data and memories.

  • Glacial Ice Cores Reveal 15,000 Year Old Microbes

    Glacial Ice Cores Reveal 15,000 Year Old Microbes

    Ancient ice contains a rich microbial record going back thousands of years. Recent advances have provided tools to study their genes and evolution, but climate change threatens to erase this frozen archive.

  • Perfume Fragrances Found in Glacial Ice on Russia’s Mount Elbrus

    Perfume Fragrances Found in Glacial Ice on Russia’s Mount Elbrus

    An ice core records the dramatic increase in the use of perfumes and other personal care products between the 1930s and 2005.

  • Glaciers May Record the Story of the Coronavirus Pandemic

    Glaciers May Record the Story of the Coronavirus Pandemic

    Reductions in human emissions and changes in atmospheric composition during the coronavirus pandemic might be observed in future glacial ice cores.

  • Accounting for Volcanoes Using Tools of Economics

    Accounting for Volcanoes Using Tools of Economics

    Climate scientists teamed up with an econometrics expert to develop an innovative new method for picking out past volcanic eruptions in temperature reconstructions going back millennia and gauging their impact on the climate.

  • Crossing 400ppm: Welcome to the Pliocene

    Crossing 400ppm: Welcome to the Pliocene

    “Right now, we’re living in a world of a Pliocene atmosphere,” scientist Maureen Raymo of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory tells the Yale Forum on Climate Change and the Media. “But the whole rest of the climate system — the oceans are trying to catch-up, the ice sheets are waning, and everything is trying to catch…