State of the Planet

News from the Columbia Climate School

Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory125

  • Scientists Say Many Plants Don’t Respond to Warming as Thought

    From Tundra to New York Exurbs and Tropics, New Data Lowers Estimates of Carbon Release

  • Finding Microfossils off Southern Africa

    Finding Microfossils off Southern Africa

    Expedition 361’s newest sediment cores brought up spectacular foraminifera—translucent, glassy and “very pretty” throughout the ocean sediment.

  • A Surprise from the Zambezi River

    A Surprise from the Zambezi River

    Sidney Hemming and her team aboard the JOIDES Resolution got a surprise when they began taking sediment cores from their first river site off southern Africa—about 10 times more sediment than expected.

  • Photo Essay: High in the Hills, Climate May Challenge Forests

    Photo Essay: High in the Hills, Climate May Challenge Forests

    Forests in the south-central United States are some of the country’s most productive and diverse. They also sit in a warming “hole”—an area where the progressive rise in temperature affecting most of the continent hasn’t yet taken hold. A team from Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory is studying how these forests might shift—or even disappear—when…

  • How Will Shifting Climate Change U.S. Forests?

    How Will Shifting Climate Change U.S. Forests?

    One foggy spring morning just after a hard rain, Park Williams was tromping through the woods deep in Arkansas’ Ozark Mountains. Toiling down a steep slope, he supposedly was keeping a simultaneous eye out for rattlesnakes, copperheads, poison ivy and big old trees. Williams seemed mostly focused on the trees, though; attention to the other…

  • Mozambique Core Brings Up 7 Million Years of Climate History

    Mozambique Core Brings Up 7 Million Years of Climate History

    With calm seas, the JOIDES Resolution’s latest sediment core comes up with what appears to be a fantastic, cyclic climate signal that is continuous back 7 million years, writes Sidney Hemming.

  • Pump Meltwater Back on Antarctica? Do You Have 850,000 Wind Turbines?

    Pump Meltwater Back on Antarctica? Do You Have 850,000 Wind Turbines?

    A new study that looked at the feasibility of lowering sea levels by pumping water onto icy Antarctica offers a warning about the costs today’s greenhouse gas emissions may be creating for future generations.

  • Scientists Prepare ‘Climate City’ for Take-Off

    Scientists Prepare ‘Climate City’ for Take-Off

    Sometime soon, a flock of “Climate Birds” could be ascending from a former NATO base in northeast France to take the measure of climate change around the world.

  • We’re Headed for Mozambique!

    We’re Headed for Mozambique!

    After weeks of anticipation, permission arrived just in time to core off Mozambique. Sidney Hemming and her team of scientists aboard the JOIDES Resolution are excited about what they might learn from the ocean sediment.

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  • Scientists Say Many Plants Don’t Respond to Warming as Thought

    From Tundra to New York Exurbs and Tropics, New Data Lowers Estimates of Carbon Release

  • Finding Microfossils off Southern Africa

    Finding Microfossils off Southern Africa

    Expedition 361’s newest sediment cores brought up spectacular foraminifera—translucent, glassy and “very pretty” throughout the ocean sediment.

  • A Surprise from the Zambezi River

    A Surprise from the Zambezi River

    Sidney Hemming and her team aboard the JOIDES Resolution got a surprise when they began taking sediment cores from their first river site off southern Africa—about 10 times more sediment than expected.

  • Photo Essay: High in the Hills, Climate May Challenge Forests

    Photo Essay: High in the Hills, Climate May Challenge Forests

    Forests in the south-central United States are some of the country’s most productive and diverse. They also sit in a warming “hole”—an area where the progressive rise in temperature affecting most of the continent hasn’t yet taken hold. A team from Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory is studying how these forests might shift—or even disappear—when…

  • How Will Shifting Climate Change U.S. Forests?

    How Will Shifting Climate Change U.S. Forests?

    One foggy spring morning just after a hard rain, Park Williams was tromping through the woods deep in Arkansas’ Ozark Mountains. Toiling down a steep slope, he supposedly was keeping a simultaneous eye out for rattlesnakes, copperheads, poison ivy and big old trees. Williams seemed mostly focused on the trees, though; attention to the other…

  • Mozambique Core Brings Up 7 Million Years of Climate History

    Mozambique Core Brings Up 7 Million Years of Climate History

    With calm seas, the JOIDES Resolution’s latest sediment core comes up with what appears to be a fantastic, cyclic climate signal that is continuous back 7 million years, writes Sidney Hemming.

  • Pump Meltwater Back on Antarctica? Do You Have 850,000 Wind Turbines?

    Pump Meltwater Back on Antarctica? Do You Have 850,000 Wind Turbines?

    A new study that looked at the feasibility of lowering sea levels by pumping water onto icy Antarctica offers a warning about the costs today’s greenhouse gas emissions may be creating for future generations.

  • Scientists Prepare ‘Climate City’ for Take-Off

    Scientists Prepare ‘Climate City’ for Take-Off

    Sometime soon, a flock of “Climate Birds” could be ascending from a former NATO base in northeast France to take the measure of climate change around the world.

  • We’re Headed for Mozambique!

    We’re Headed for Mozambique!

    After weeks of anticipation, permission arrived just in time to core off Mozambique. Sidney Hemming and her team of scientists aboard the JOIDES Resolution are excited about what they might learn from the ocean sediment.