News and Events

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.

This is not a drill, or a far-flung fantasy; Southwestern US is facing a critical megadrought. The last two decades have been the driest since 800 CE, and pioneering studies by Columbia Scientists and other institutions have proven that the anthropogenic impact on the climate is a major contributing factor. The water level at the region's two largest reservoirs is at a record low, resulting in contention between seven states and millions of their residents for their diminishing share of hydroelectric power as well as agricultural and residential water demand. This is especially daunting in anticipation…

The American southwest is in a megadrought. Water levels in lakes are dropping, threatening the local environment as well as agriculture, hydroelectric power, and the people living there. As global temperatures rise, it could be a preview of worse things to come.

Guest: Dr. Jason Smerdon, ocean and climate physicist, and Lamont research professor at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University and co-director at the Earth Institute Faculty.

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The National Weather Service has issued yet another warning about the dangerous heat and fire risk that will continue to grip much of the U.S. this weekend. Jason E. Smerdon, Lamont Research professor at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, joined Cheddar News to talk about climate change’s role in recent heat waves. “We’re seeing these kinds of events more frequently, and we’re also seeing them simultaneously around the globe," he said, "so the story of this week has been heat waves in Europe, in the United States and in parts of Asia as well, and that’s all characteristic…