State of the Planet

News from the Columbia Climate School

Milankovitch cycles

  • Scientists Track Deep History of Planets’ Motions, and Effects on Earth’s Climate

    Scientists Track Deep History of Planets’ Motions, and Effects on Earth’s Climate

    Scientists are developing a geologic record of how other planets have influenced the orbit of Earth, and thus its climate, over the last 200 million-plus years.

  • Seafloor Volcano Pulses May Alter Climate

    New Data Show Strikingly Regular Patterns, From Weeks to Eons

  • Tackling an Ice Age Mystery

    Tackling an Ice Age Mystery

    In a new study in Nature, climate scientist Maureen Raymo and her colleagues show that variations in sunlight interact with Earth’s topography and the size of ice sheets to control Earth’s ice ages on 100,000 year cycles. One important finding: as ice sheets grow bigger, they also become more vulnerable to melting.

  • Can Big Earthquakes Disrupt World Weather?

    Can Big Earthquakes Disrupt World Weather?

    The recent earthquake in Japan shifted the earth’s axis by half a foot. You may be wondering if that’s enough to change earth’s weather. No, not really, says Jerry McManus, a climate scientist at Columbia’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. Earthquakes unleash a tremendous amount of energy, but not enough to upset the energy balance of earth’s…

  • Answer to What Ended Last Ice Age May Be Blowing in the Wind

    A Chain of Past Natural Events May Hold Lessons for the Future

  • Scientists Track Deep History of Planets’ Motions, and Effects on Earth’s Climate

    Scientists Track Deep History of Planets’ Motions, and Effects on Earth’s Climate

    Scientists are developing a geologic record of how other planets have influenced the orbit of Earth, and thus its climate, over the last 200 million-plus years.

  • Seafloor Volcano Pulses May Alter Climate

    New Data Show Strikingly Regular Patterns, From Weeks to Eons

  • Tackling an Ice Age Mystery

    Tackling an Ice Age Mystery

    In a new study in Nature, climate scientist Maureen Raymo and her colleagues show that variations in sunlight interact with Earth’s topography and the size of ice sheets to control Earth’s ice ages on 100,000 year cycles. One important finding: as ice sheets grow bigger, they also become more vulnerable to melting.

  • Can Big Earthquakes Disrupt World Weather?

    Can Big Earthquakes Disrupt World Weather?

    The recent earthquake in Japan shifted the earth’s axis by half a foot. You may be wondering if that’s enough to change earth’s weather. No, not really, says Jerry McManus, a climate scientist at Columbia’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. Earthquakes unleash a tremendous amount of energy, but not enough to upset the energy balance of earth’s…

  • Answer to What Ended Last Ice Age May Be Blowing in the Wind

    A Chain of Past Natural Events May Hold Lessons for the Future