News
On May 6, 2024, while Columbia’s Morningside Campus was still closed due to student protests, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences held its annual awards ceremony to honor our treasured students and alumni. In his opening remarks, GSAS Dean Carlos Alonso noted, “this ceremony is a celebration of the very elements about Columbia that will allow us to regain our equilibrium when the current dismal situation abates: superlative teaching and mentoring, world-class research, and the training of graduates who will change the world through their contributions.”
...
The winners of the Faculty…
Known for its glowing swaths of yellow, orange and red, the U.S. Drought Monitorhas warned farmers, residents and officials throughout the nation of impending water scarcity every week since 1999.
Backed by data on soil moisture, temperature, snow cover, meltwater runoff, reservoir levels and more, the map has become an essential instrument for determining the outlook of water supplies, declaring drought emergencies and deciding where and when government aid should be distributed, among other things.
But this critical diagnostic tool is also struggling to keep pace with climate…
Reconstructions of summer temperatures across western North America spanning the past 500 years suggest that concurrent heat and drought conditions, known as “hot drought,” have been unprecedented in frequency and severity over the past century. The findings are derived from tree-ring chronologies that show how changing temperatures relate to changes in soil moisture. They add to growing evidence that human-influenced warming has exacerbated climate extremes across the region.
The study, by researchers at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and other institutions, …
Third graders at Public School 103 in the north Bronx sat on a rug last month while their teacher, Kristy Neumeister, led a book discussion.
The book, “Rain School,” is about children who live in a rural region of Chad, a country in central Africa. Every year, their school must be rebuilt because storms wash it away.
“And what’s causing all these rains and storms and floods?” asked Ms. Neumeister.
“Carbon,” said Aiden, a serious-looking 8-year-old.
From a climate perspective, 2024 is beginning in uncharted territory. Temperatures last year broke records not by small intervals but by big leaps; 2023 was the hottest year ever recorded, and each month in the second half of the year was the hottest—the hottest June, the hottest July, all the way through to December. July was in fact the hottest month in recorded history. Already, experts predict that 2024 is likely to be even hotter. But these heat records, although important milestones, won’t hold their title for long. “Getting too excited about any given year…
Check out all of our lab presentations at AGU this year. They are listed below in chronological order. Come by and say hi!
PP32B-03 The Increasing Prevalence of Hot Drought Across Western North America Since the 16th Century
Karen King, Edward R Cook, Kevin J Anchukaitis, Benjamin Cook, Jason E Smerdon, Richard Seager, Grant L. Harley and Benjamin Spei
3022 - West (Level 3, West, MC)
Wednesday, 13 December 2023: 13:42 - 13:52
PP33E-1569 Simultaneous megadroughts in the southwestern regions of North America and South America in last-millennium climate model simulations
Anson…
The Smerdon Climate Lab is excited to welcome a new graduate student and a Lamont Postdoctoral Fellow! Hannah Byrne and Anson Cheung joined Columbia in fall 2023. Hannah has interests in hydroclimate variability and change and will be working on a collaborative NSF project aimed at understanding how variability in surface ocean temperatures, particularly those in the Pacific Ocean, impact drought patterns around the world. Her project will be advised jointly with Richard Seager. Anson is similarly interested in hydroclimate variability, but has an interest in characterizing…
Lab members and friends gathered for a potluck in the park for one last hurrah before Ari leaves and to celebrate the arrival of several new members. It turns out these folks can cook! Good food and good fun was had by all. There was even a bubble machine.
Arianna Varuolo-Clarke is officially a doctor! Dr. Varuolo-Clarke successfully defended her thesis, titled The Mystery of Observed and Simulated Precipitation Trends in Southeastern South America since the early 20th Century, on June 23rd. Ari's next step is to the University of Colorado-Boulder where she will work with Jennifer Kay as a NOAA Climate and Global Change Postdoctoral Fellow.
Graduate student Arianna Varuolo-Clarke has been awarded a prestigious NOAA Climate and Global Change Fellowship. Ari will defend her doctoral thesis in June, before moving to Boulder to pursue her postdoctoral research with Prof. Jennifer Kay at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Her proposed project is titled "Investigating drivers of midlatitude precipitation change in a warming world."
Congrats Ari! We can't wait to read about all of the new research you complete during your postdoc!
Anson Cheung visited Lamont from Brown University on February 9th and 10th. Anson's visit was an occasion to gather lab members for an evening dinner. Arianna Varuolo-Clarke, Ibuki Sugiura, Aandishah Samara, Yelin Jiang, Richard Seager, and Hannah Byrne were able to join.
The Smerdon Climate Lab is excited to welcome Yelin Jiang as a new Postdoctoral Research Scientist. Yelin received his B.S. and M.S. in Ecology from the School of Applied Meteorology at Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology. He holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from University of Connecticut. His dissertation was advised by Prof. Guiling Wang and titled “Land-Atmosphere Interactions and Drought over Tropical South America.”
Yelin studies land-atmosphere interactions using numerical models and observational data. He is particularly interested…
Check out all of our lab presentations at AGU. They are listed below in chronological order. Come by and say hi!
MONDAY
B16C-07
Nonlinear plant responses to carbon dioxide and climate diminish water availability
Justin Mankin, Noel Siegert, Harmanveer Singh, Emily Martinez, Zhiying Li, Jason E Smerdon, Benjamin Cook, Richard Seager, and Park Williams
TUESDAY
NG25A-08
Progress and uncertainties in global and hemispheric temperature reconstructions of the Common Era
Jason Smerdon and Kevin Anchukaitis
WEDNESDAY
Day of rest!
THURSDAY…
The Smerdon Climate Lab is excited to welcome two new graduate students! Aandishah Samara and Ibuki Sugiura joined Columbia in fall 2022 as first-year graduate students in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences. Both have interests in hydroclimate variability and change and will be working on two collaborative NSF projects (here and here) aimed at understanding how variability in surface ocean temperatures, particularly those in the Pacific Ocean, impact drought patterns around the world. Their projects will be advised jointly with Richard Seager.
Aandishah earned…
Gasping salmon with infected lesions. Emaciated deer searching sagebrush flats for water. Clams and mussels boiled to death in their shells. Last summer, temperatures in the Northwest soared to record highs in the triple digits, killing more than 1 billion marine animals in the Salish Sea and stressing wildlife from the Pacific to the Rocky Mountains. Simultaneously, ongoing drought in the Southwest—which began in 2000 and is the region’s driest 22-year period in 1,200 years—is causing plants to wither, springs to dry up and wildfires to engulf entire landscapes.
…