State of the Planet

News from the Columbia Climate School

Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory128

  • It’s Beginning to Look Not a Lot Like Christmas

    It’s Beginning to Look Not a Lot Like Christmas

    Much of the eastern two-thirds of the United States was balmy on Christmas Day, with high temperatures more than 20°F above average from Texas to Maine. According to NOAA, 789 daily high temperature records were tied or broken on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in the continental United States. What’s behind this unusual weather?

  • The Floor of the Ocean Comes into Better Focus

    The Floor of the Ocean Comes into Better Focus

    The bottom of the ocean just keeps getting better. Or at least more interesting to look at.

  • All I Wanted for Christmas Was for These Pumps to Work

    All I Wanted for Christmas Was for These Pumps to Work

    We’ve just completed our first full station and are remarkably pleased with the results. We collected 8 seawater samples to measure helium isotopes; 20 to measure thorium and protactinium isotopes; 7 in-situ pump filters; 1 box core of the ocean floor; and more.

  • New App Explores Ice and Sea Level Change Through Time

    Lamont-Doherty Scientists Create ‘Polar Explorer: Sea Level’

  • Doing Science When There’s No Science to Be Done

    Doing Science When There’s No Science to Be Done

    With an abundance of time and a dearth of work, we have begun to devise ways of doing science before we can actually do science at sea. Among other things, we set up an imaging system to take pictures of particle filters we bring back from the deep sea.

  • Detecting Landslides from a Few Seismic Wiggles

    Detecting Landslides from a Few Seismic Wiggles

    Over the last six years, seismologists Göran Ekström and Colin Stark have been perfecting a technique for picking out the seismic signature of large landslides. They just discovered North America’s largest known landslide in many years – 200 million tons of sliding rock in Alaska.

  • Setting Sail? Plan for the Unexpected

    Setting Sail? Plan for the Unexpected

    In the weeks before departing for my first scientific cruise, everyone I knew who had ever been to sea gave me some form of the same advice: Nothing ever works the way you expect it to work at sea.

  • Testing the Speed of Lava: What It Says about Escape Times & Mars

    Testing the Speed of Lava: What It Says about Escape Times & Mars

    Elise Rumpf’s lava flow simulations are yielding new details about the velocity of lava over different surfaces. They may also hold clues about the surfaces of other planets.

  • Catch Up on the Latest in Earth Science with AGU Sessions Live Online

    Catch Up on the Latest in Earth Science with AGU Sessions Live Online

    The American Geophysical Union’s Fall Meeting opens in San Francisco this week. Catch up on your interests through AGU’s On-Demand live stream.

Composite banner with modern building at night and portrait of Dean Alexis Abramson that reads "Science for the Planet"

By studying thousands of buildings and analyzing their electricity use, Columbia Climate School Dean Alexis Abramson has been able to uncover ways to significantly cut energy consumption and emissions. Watch the Video: “Engineering a Cooler Future Through Smarter Buildings

  • It’s Beginning to Look Not a Lot Like Christmas

    It’s Beginning to Look Not a Lot Like Christmas

    Much of the eastern two-thirds of the United States was balmy on Christmas Day, with high temperatures more than 20°F above average from Texas to Maine. According to NOAA, 789 daily high temperature records were tied or broken on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in the continental United States. What’s behind this unusual weather?

  • The Floor of the Ocean Comes into Better Focus

    The Floor of the Ocean Comes into Better Focus

    The bottom of the ocean just keeps getting better. Or at least more interesting to look at.

  • All I Wanted for Christmas Was for These Pumps to Work

    All I Wanted for Christmas Was for These Pumps to Work

    We’ve just completed our first full station and are remarkably pleased with the results. We collected 8 seawater samples to measure helium isotopes; 20 to measure thorium and protactinium isotopes; 7 in-situ pump filters; 1 box core of the ocean floor; and more.

  • New App Explores Ice and Sea Level Change Through Time

    Lamont-Doherty Scientists Create ‘Polar Explorer: Sea Level’

  • Doing Science When There’s No Science to Be Done

    Doing Science When There’s No Science to Be Done

    With an abundance of time and a dearth of work, we have begun to devise ways of doing science before we can actually do science at sea. Among other things, we set up an imaging system to take pictures of particle filters we bring back from the deep sea.

  • Detecting Landslides from a Few Seismic Wiggles

    Detecting Landslides from a Few Seismic Wiggles

    Over the last six years, seismologists Göran Ekström and Colin Stark have been perfecting a technique for picking out the seismic signature of large landslides. They just discovered North America’s largest known landslide in many years – 200 million tons of sliding rock in Alaska.

  • Setting Sail? Plan for the Unexpected

    Setting Sail? Plan for the Unexpected

    In the weeks before departing for my first scientific cruise, everyone I knew who had ever been to sea gave me some form of the same advice: Nothing ever works the way you expect it to work at sea.

  • Testing the Speed of Lava: What It Says about Escape Times & Mars

    Testing the Speed of Lava: What It Says about Escape Times & Mars

    Elise Rumpf’s lava flow simulations are yielding new details about the velocity of lava over different surfaces. They may also hold clues about the surfaces of other planets.

  • Catch Up on the Latest in Earth Science with AGU Sessions Live Online

    Catch Up on the Latest in Earth Science with AGU Sessions Live Online

    The American Geophysical Union’s Fall Meeting opens in San Francisco this week. Catch up on your interests through AGU’s On-Demand live stream.