State of the Planet

News from the Columbia Climate School

Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory134

  • Science, Powered by the Sun

    Science, Powered by the Sun

    Two solar farms will soon power 75 percent of Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, whose high-tech labs are home to some of the world’s leading Earth scientists. The new power sources are expected to cut the campus’s carbon dioxide emissions by half.

  • Scouring Arctic for Traces of Fukushima and Cosmic Rays

    Scouring Arctic for Traces of Fukushima and Cosmic Rays

    Sounds like the basis for a great scifi thriller…”scientists scour Arctic, hunting for traces of nuclear fallout and ejections from cosmic ray impacts”. In reality this thriller theme is the actual core of the GEOTRACES mission.

  • Moving into the Realm of the Polar Bear

    Moving into the Realm of the Polar Bear

    When we venture into the Arctic for research for most of us there is the lingering hope that a polar bear will appear on our watch; at least as long as we are safely outside of its reach.

  • Photo Essay: The Mystery of North American Diamonds

    Photo Essay: The Mystery of North American Diamonds

    People have been finding loose diamonds across the United States and Canada since the early 1800s, but for the most part, no one knows where they came from. It was not until the 1990s that geologists tracked down the first commercial deposits, on the remote tundra of Canada’s Northwest Territories. Yaakov Weiss, a geochemist at…

  • Cracking Open Diamonds for Messages From the Deep Earth

    Cracking Open Diamonds for Messages From the Deep Earth

    “After a diamond captures something, from that moment until millions of years later in my lab, that material stays the same. We can look at diamonds as time capsules, as messengers from a place we have no other way of seeing.”

  • Tree Rings on Hawai’i Could Hold New Knowledge About El Niño

    Tree Rings on Hawai’i Could Hold New Knowledge About El Niño

    Annual tree rings are a rare find in the tropical islands of the eastern Pacific. The new discovery of trees with annual rings on a Hawaiian volcano could provide new climate data from a part of the world where much of the variability of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation originates.

  • Warming Climate Is Deepening California Drought

    Scientists Say Increasing Heat Drives Moisture from Ground

  • Mapping Land Claimed by Sea Level Rise

    Mapping Land Claimed by Sea Level Rise

    Understanding how coastal areas changed as the ocean rose in the past could help communities protect themselves from storm surge flooding in the future as the oceans warm and sea levels rise.

  • Tracing the Arctic

    Tracing the Arctic

    The land surrounding the Arctic Ocean is like a set of cradling arms, holding the ocean and the sea ice in a circular grasp. Within that cradle is a unique mix of waters, including freshwater from melting glacial ice and large rivers, and a salty mix of relatively warm Atlantic water and the cooler Pacific…

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

  • Science, Powered by the Sun

    Science, Powered by the Sun

    Two solar farms will soon power 75 percent of Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, whose high-tech labs are home to some of the world’s leading Earth scientists. The new power sources are expected to cut the campus’s carbon dioxide emissions by half.

  • Scouring Arctic for Traces of Fukushima and Cosmic Rays

    Scouring Arctic for Traces of Fukushima and Cosmic Rays

    Sounds like the basis for a great scifi thriller…”scientists scour Arctic, hunting for traces of nuclear fallout and ejections from cosmic ray impacts”. In reality this thriller theme is the actual core of the GEOTRACES mission.

  • Moving into the Realm of the Polar Bear

    Moving into the Realm of the Polar Bear

    When we venture into the Arctic for research for most of us there is the lingering hope that a polar bear will appear on our watch; at least as long as we are safely outside of its reach.

  • Photo Essay: The Mystery of North American Diamonds

    Photo Essay: The Mystery of North American Diamonds

    People have been finding loose diamonds across the United States and Canada since the early 1800s, but for the most part, no one knows where they came from. It was not until the 1990s that geologists tracked down the first commercial deposits, on the remote tundra of Canada’s Northwest Territories. Yaakov Weiss, a geochemist at…

  • Cracking Open Diamonds for Messages From the Deep Earth

    Cracking Open Diamonds for Messages From the Deep Earth

    “After a diamond captures something, from that moment until millions of years later in my lab, that material stays the same. We can look at diamonds as time capsules, as messengers from a place we have no other way of seeing.”

  • Tree Rings on Hawai’i Could Hold New Knowledge About El Niño

    Tree Rings on Hawai’i Could Hold New Knowledge About El Niño

    Annual tree rings are a rare find in the tropical islands of the eastern Pacific. The new discovery of trees with annual rings on a Hawaiian volcano could provide new climate data from a part of the world where much of the variability of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation originates.

  • Warming Climate Is Deepening California Drought

    Scientists Say Increasing Heat Drives Moisture from Ground

  • Mapping Land Claimed by Sea Level Rise

    Mapping Land Claimed by Sea Level Rise

    Understanding how coastal areas changed as the ocean rose in the past could help communities protect themselves from storm surge flooding in the future as the oceans warm and sea levels rise.

  • Tracing the Arctic

    Tracing the Arctic

    The land surrounding the Arctic Ocean is like a set of cradling arms, holding the ocean and the sea ice in a circular grasp. Within that cradle is a unique mix of waters, including freshwater from melting glacial ice and large rivers, and a salty mix of relatively warm Atlantic water and the cooler Pacific…