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The website for our PIRE CREATE project has been launched. Check it out!
Take a look at that syllabus your teacher handed out at the start of this year. If your professor teaches at one of the 12 schools, departments, or locations that have been certified through the Sustainable Leaders Network’s Workplace Certification, that syllabus is most likely printed on 100 percent recycled paper. And that business card you got from a professor in the School of Nursing? It’s probably made up of at least 30 percent postconsumer waste content.
The Sustainable Leaders Network was created in 2016 alongside University President Lee Bollinger’s announcement of Columbia’s…
In an unusual new study, scientists say they have detected the fingerprint of human-driven global warming on patterns of drought and moisture across the world as far back as 1900. Rising temperatures are well documented back at least that far, but this is the first time researchers have identified resulting long-term global effects on the water supplies that feed crops and cities. Among the observations, the researchers documented drying of soils across much of populous North America, central America, Eurasia and the Mediterranean…
Got a burning question about climate change? “You Asked” is a series where Earth Institute experts tackle reader questions on science and sustainability. To submit a question, drop a comment below, message us on Instagram, or email us here.
Today’s question comes via our Earth Month Q&A on Instagram:
Why is there 21% oxygen and 0.03% carbon dioxide in the atmosphere?
Answer provided by Jason Smerdon
As student groups push for more drastic change, Columbia’s 2020 Sustainability Plan is expected to see an increased focus on carbon neutrality and include plans for greater energy efficiency and waste reduction, according to faculty involved in the initiative. Read more
Widespread summer droughts across North America are particularly damaging and costly. The last of these droughts was in 2012 and cost over an estimated $30 billion. In an effort to understand these droughts better, Hun Baek, a graduate student in the PaleoDynamics lab, has published a paper in Journal of Geophysical Research - Atmospheres exploring the oceanic and atmospheric causes of these droughts over the last ~150 years. He finds that the tropical Pacific Ocean has played an important role in forcing these droughts, but an equal contribution has come from internal atmospheric…
The 2018 Fall AGU meeting is next week and there will be many presentations from our PaleoDynamics Group, affiliated colleagues, and collaborators. Below is a chronological list of all our activities.
Kate Marvel, Ben Cook, Park Williams and Jason Smerdon: 20th-century emergence of a forced signal in global drought, Monday, 10 December 2018, 08:01-08:16, GC11B-01
Justin Mankin, Richard Seager, Jason Smerdon, Ben Cook and Park Williams, Will plants ameliorate or amplify drought risks under global warming? Monday, 10 December 2018, 11:05-11:20, GC12C-04
Sonali McDermid,…
Jason Smerdon is coauthor of the newly revised Climate Change: The Science of Global Warming and Our Energy Future. The book is a succinct, non-ideological reference for anyone who wants to understand what we know (and don’t) about climate, from the basic workings of the atmosphere, oceans and solid earth through the long-term history of planetary climate, the human influence on it, and modern energy production and its implications. The book’s first edition, published in 2009, was by Edmond Mathez of the American Museum of Natural History (Smerdon wrote the student…
Prof. Smerdon will be giving a keynote lecture on the science of climate change as part of the Legacy Project at the County College of Morris on October 11th. The lecture will be part of a year-long focus of the Legacy Project on climate change and the intersection between science and the liberal arts.
The Smerdon PaleoDynamics Lab is happy to welcome Arianna Varuolo-Clarke as a new graduate student working with Prof. Smerdon in the Ocean and Climate Physics Division and Dr. Park Williams in the Lamont Tree-Ring Laboratory. Arianna joins us from Stony Brook University where she completed her Master's degree working with Prof. Kevin Reed on the North American Monsoon. Her PhD thesis will focus on large-scale hydroclimate variability in South America using a combination of climate reconstructions, observational data, and climate model simulations; the work…
The Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory is now accepting applications for 2019 Lamont Postdoctoral Fellowships (deadline is November 12th, 2018). The Earth Institute is also accepting applications for 2019 Earth Institute Postdoctoral Fellowships. Our lab has mentored postdocs from both of these programs and we welcome your interest in pursuing research that you independently develop and pursue. Contact Prof. Jason Smerdon if you would like more information on working in our lab as a Lamont or EI postdoc.
PBS and WNET have released the video How the World Warmed as part of the Peril and Promise: The Challenge of Climate Change public media initiative; Prof. Smerdon served as an expert consultant on the video project. The teaser for the video from Peril and Promise: The earth is currently at its hottest point in recorded history and sea levels continue to rise to alarming levels around the globe- how did we get to our current climate crisis? Watch to learn “How the World Warmed” throughout history: the scientific discoveries, policy decisions, and key historical events…
We ignore science at our own peril. We fail to embrace and cultivate scientific enterprise at the cost of our economy, national security, environment, public health, human well-being, and international competitiveness. As a society, we choose either to make decisions based on our best efforts to define truth and reality, or to muddle through in darkness. But no matter how much a person closes their eyes and plugs their ears, the world around us is still governed by immutable natural laws that define cause and effect. Read more
An edited version of this essay was also published at…
Early reviews are in for Climate Change: The Science of Global Warming and Our Energy Future (2nd Edition) by Ed Mathez and Jason Smerdon. The planned publication date is September 2018. Read more at the Columbia University Press webpage.
Early Reviews:
This text should have great appeal for teaching an introductory undergraduate course on climate change science as well as a broad survey for graduate students. The book is well written with concepts adequately explained. Mathez and Smerdon have done a great job at hitting many of the very important concepts…
The Climate of the Common Era has been accepted as a session at the 2018 Fall AGU Meeting. Join us for another year of broad ranging presentations relating to the climate of the last 2000 years. This year we are also specifically encouraging abstracts that are relevant to climate policy and management topics. The abstract of the session is given below and we will provide updates on the timing of the session as they become available. In the meantime, remember that the abstract submission period is now open and will close on August 1st. We look forward to seeing your…