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The past year has been one in which Earth’s climate has been much in the news. Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria and this year’s wildfire season in California have reminded us of the power of weather and climate extremes to threaten lives and devastate infrastructure. From the continuing loss of ice from the great ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica to more frequent flooding of coastal areas, and from changes in rainfall patterns and the frequency and severity of droughts to warming and acidification of the world’s oceans, the effects of climate change can be felt by all plants and animals on the planet, from the largest mammals to the tiniest microbes.
Understanding Earth’s climate, how it has varied in the past, what factors influence both natural variability and global change, and what can be expected in the future on global to local scales is a topic of paramount importance to humanity. And it is a topic for which Columbia University and Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in particular have expertise of exceptional breadth and depth. This year has been an especially productive one at Lamont on these and other critical questions. As 2017 draws to a close, we are pleased to present this retrospective, highlighting several of our most notable accomplishments.
Under the Dead Sea, Warnings of Dire Drought
In sediments nearly 1,000 feet beneath the bottom of the Dead Sea, scientists have found evidence that during past warm periods, the Mideast has suffered drought on scales never recorded by humans – a possible warning for current times.
Water Is Streaming Across Antarctica
In the first such continent-wide survey of Antarctica, scientists have found extensive surface drainage systems of meltwater flowing over parts of Antarctica’s ice during austral summer.
Reduced U.S. Air Pollution Will Boost Rainfall in Africa’s Sahel, Says Study
Falling sulfur dioxide emissions in the United States are expected to increase rainfall markedly in Africa’s semi-arid Sahel, while bringing slightly more rain to much of the U.S.
New Images of Alaska Sub-Seafloor Suggest High Tsunami Danger
Scientists probing under the seafloor off Alaska have mapped a geologic structure that they say signals potential for a major tsunami in an area that previously had been considered benign.
By 2100, Climate Change Could Alter Key Microbial Interactions in the Ocean
The warmer, more acidic waters caused by climate change will affect the health of tiny marine organisms essential to the marine food web and important to the marine carbon cycle.
Climate May Drive Forest-Eating Beetles North, Says Study
Over the next few decades, global-warming-related increases in winter temperatures could extend substantially the range of the southern pine beetle – one of the world’s most aggressive tree-killing insects – through much of the northern United States and southern Canada.
Lamont in the News: 2017 Highlights
Changing Ice, Changing Coastlines
The Antarctica Series: Four virtual-reality films that take you on, above, and below the Antarctic ice. This series highlighted Lamont’s leadership in the Rosetta Ice Project and the work of Robin Bell, Nicholas Frearson, and Kirsty Tinto. — New York Times
Antarctic Dispatches: Journalists accompanied Lamont polar scientists to Antarctica to understand how changes to its vast ice sheet might affect the world. — New York Times
Antarctica’s Sleeping Ice Giant Could Wake Up Soon: Direct observations confirmed a fear that researchers had long harbored: that warm waters from the surrounding ocean can sneak underneath the floating glacier tongue of an ice shelf and eat away the ice from below. — Nature
Antarctica Is Covered with More Meltwater Than Thought: Seasonal flows of meltwater, a part of Antarctica’s natural water cycle, have been known for decades to crisscross the continent. Now, scientists have systematically catalogued them – revealing them to be more extensive than many scientists had thought. — National Geographic
Maureen Raymo: Profile of Lamont geologist, paleoclimatologist, and sea-level expert Maureen Raymo — Adventure Science
Extreme Weather and Climate
How Will Climate Change Impact Future Floods and Flood Insurance? Radley Horton, a research professor at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, studies climate extremes, impacts, and adaptation. He spoke about flood insurance with NewsHour economics correspondent Paul Solman for a Making Sen$e segment. — PBS NewsHour
From Heat Waves to Hurricanes, What We Know About Extreme Weather and Climate Change: The recent string of extreme events has brought new focus to a familiar question: Is climate change to blame? —New York Times
As Deadly Wildfires Rage in California, a Look at How Global Warming Fuels Decades of Forest Fires: This year’s wildfires have come after the U.S. Forest Service warned last year that an unprecedented 5-year drought led to the deaths of more than 100 million trees in California, setting the stage for massive fires. Climate scientists believe human-caused global warming played a major role in the drought. Park Williams, bioclimatologist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and co-author of a 2016 report showing that global warming is responsible for nearly half of the forest area burned in the western United States over the past three decades, was interviewed on the topic. — Democracy Now!
Climate and Life
Growing Algae Bloom in Arabian Sea Tied to Climate Change: The Gulf of Oman turns green twice a year, when an algal bloom the size of Mexico spreads across the Arabian Sea all the way to India. — Associated Press
Real-Time Earth
Asia’s Role in Rising Western U.S. Smog Levels: U.S. emissions of smog-forming pollutants have dropped, but smog levels in the western U.S. have increased each year. Now, researchers say, they've found out why. As Lamont atmospheric scientist Arlene Fiore explains, it's wafting from across the Pacific Ocean. — NPR
Anticipating Earthquakes
Faults off Alaska Look Akin to Those behind 2011 Japan Disaster: Along a seismically quiet segment of Alaska’s subduction zone lie faults with structures similar to those of the system that caused the deadly Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. — Eos
The Lifesaving Potential of Underwater Earthquake Monitors: Deploying sensors on the floor of the ocean could allow for earlier and more accurate tsunami warnings. — The Atlantic
