State of the Planet

News from the Columbia Climate School

ice sheet

  • Cordilleran Ice Sheet Retreat Caused Volcanic Eruptions, Deoxygenation Events 10,000 Years Ago

    Cordilleran Ice Sheet Retreat Caused Volcanic Eruptions, Deoxygenation Events 10,000 Years Ago

    New research shows that retreat of an ice sheet in the Pacific Northwest led to many volcanic explosions and ocean areas with low oxygen that threatened the health of marine ecosystems.

  • Greenland Ice Sheet Reached Tipping Point 20 Years Ago, New Study Finds

    Greenland Ice Sheet Reached Tipping Point 20 Years Ago, New Study Finds

    The massive ice sheet is now locked into a certain amount of decline. But reducing emissions remains critical to preventing catastrophic loss of the entire ice sheet.

  • Robin Bell Goes to Washington to Testify About Melting Ice Sheets

    Robin Bell Goes to Washington to Testify About Melting Ice Sheets

    At a hearing of the House Science Committee on Thursday, she’ll explain her research and why changing polar ice matters to everyone in America and around the world.

  • Fountain of Youth Underlies Antarctic Mountains

    New Study Explains Why Peaks Buried in Ice Look So Young

  • 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.”

  • Greenland Ice

    Greenland Ice

    If you went to Greenland, almost 80 North, And drilled your way down … a mile, then more, You’d find some strange layers, a story’d come forth A record of ice ages locked in a core.

  • 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.

  • Switchyard Project: Day 1 – Alert, Alert, Alert

    Switchyard Project: Day 1 – Alert, Alert, Alert

    The first day of our operation is usually filled with a lot of work preparing and testing the instruments we brought up here, preparing the airplanes, loading our equipment into the planes, setting up the equipment in the laboratory and preparing the sampling containers. Since our operation requires drilling holes through the sea ice, we…

  • Switchyard Project: In Transit…Part 2

    Switchyard Project: In Transit…Part 2

    April 27, 2011: We spent the night in Thule in the North Star Hotel. Before we could leave Thule the crew had to load the cargo back into the C130. Equipment is loaded onto palettes, and these palettes are loaded through the rear door into the plane. A C130 can handle four palettes with two tons of cargo…

  • Cordilleran Ice Sheet Retreat Caused Volcanic Eruptions, Deoxygenation Events 10,000 Years Ago

    Cordilleran Ice Sheet Retreat Caused Volcanic Eruptions, Deoxygenation Events 10,000 Years Ago

    New research shows that retreat of an ice sheet in the Pacific Northwest led to many volcanic explosions and ocean areas with low oxygen that threatened the health of marine ecosystems.

  • Greenland Ice Sheet Reached Tipping Point 20 Years Ago, New Study Finds

    Greenland Ice Sheet Reached Tipping Point 20 Years Ago, New Study Finds

    The massive ice sheet is now locked into a certain amount of decline. But reducing emissions remains critical to preventing catastrophic loss of the entire ice sheet.

  • Robin Bell Goes to Washington to Testify About Melting Ice Sheets

    Robin Bell Goes to Washington to Testify About Melting Ice Sheets

    At a hearing of the House Science Committee on Thursday, she’ll explain her research and why changing polar ice matters to everyone in America and around the world.

  • Fountain of Youth Underlies Antarctic Mountains

    New Study Explains Why Peaks Buried in Ice Look So Young

  • 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.”

  • Greenland Ice

    Greenland Ice

    If you went to Greenland, almost 80 North, And drilled your way down … a mile, then more, You’d find some strange layers, a story’d come forth A record of ice ages locked in a core.

  • 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.

  • Switchyard Project: Day 1 – Alert, Alert, Alert

    Switchyard Project: Day 1 – Alert, Alert, Alert

    The first day of our operation is usually filled with a lot of work preparing and testing the instruments we brought up here, preparing the airplanes, loading our equipment into the planes, setting up the equipment in the laboratory and preparing the sampling containers. Since our operation requires drilling holes through the sea ice, we…

  • Switchyard Project: In Transit…Part 2

    Switchyard Project: In Transit…Part 2

    April 27, 2011: We spent the night in Thule in the North Star Hotel. Before we could leave Thule the crew had to load the cargo back into the C130. Equipment is loaded onto palettes, and these palettes are loaded through the rear door into the plane. A C130 can handle four palettes with two tons of cargo…