Hello Friends, I have to start by sharing the excitement I have felt over the last three days, seeing so many of our colleagues back on campus. Many of you I have not seen for almost 18 months. And so many new faces as well—welcome everyone!
I also have some very exciting news to share. Yesterday a group of our climate scientists, led by Profs. Pierre Gentine (joint DEES/SEAS), Galen McKinley (DEES), and Ryan Abernathey (DEES), were awarded a $25M five-year NSF Science and Technology Center grant to use machine learning and the methods of artificial intelligence to build better climate models. Their modeling center will combine Earth observations with new computational methods to improve our ability to predict future climate change. From no less than President Bollinger himself, “Until climate models can offer more precise projections, at the regional level where planning decisions are made, it will be difficult to make the billion-dollar investments needed to adapt. I can think of no better university than Columbia, with its interdisciplinary focus, to lead the way in tackling the climate prediction problem.” Congratulations to all the researchers on the Lamont campus who helped move this proposal forward, and especially Galen and Ryan!
And, as if that wasn’t exciting enough, another of our researchers, DEES Prof. Sonya Dyhrman, is a co-PI and partner with another NSF STC grant (only six were awarded nationally) led by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. The Center for Chemical Currencies of a Microbial Planet will study the chemicals and chemical processes that underpin ocean ecosystems. I’d like to think that this is the “Peter deMenocal effect” but I know the PIs all spent years (literally) competing for these huge and prestigious STC grants.
In other great news, Sean Kinney just successfully defended his PhD thesis “Re-evaluating the timescale of rift and post-rift magmatism on the Eastern North American Margin via zircon U-Pb geochronology”. Sean will stay at Lamont and continue on as a Postdoctoral Research Scientist working on a project he helped to craft and get funded.
Last week, on September 2, DEES and Lamont welcomed the new cohort of graduate students with a tour of our campus. It was my pleasure to welcome everyone personally on the Directorate patio. Later that day I went downtown to join a reception for the inaugural students in the Columbia Climate School’s Climate and Society Program. Retired Lamonter and “Earth Elder” Mark Cane founded this masters degree program 16 years ago, well ahead of its time—the program has now moved to the Columbia Climate School, its new and very natural home.
This week several divisions announced their scheduled topical seminars for the fall semester. You can find the list of seminars by division in the “events” section of our website. Next week, the PALSEA meeting on "Improving understanding of ice sheet and solid earth processes driving paleo sea level change” organized by DEES Assistant Professor Jacky Austermann, and which was supposed to be held in person at Lamont, will be held virtually. The meeting will be held Monday-Thursday (Sept. 13-16th), 8.30am - 12.30pm EDT each day, on zoom. If anyone is still interested in attending this meeting (full program), you can still register today to receive the zoom link. Finally, in thinking about seminar speakers, please reflect on our Observatory-wide initiative to diversify the gender and racial composition of the speakers brought to Lamont. Graduate student and DEI Task Force co-chair Kailani Acosta, a hero of this initiative, shared a graph of the results of this effort for 2019 and 2020. Kailani adds, “Thank you all for your recommendations and for continuing to prioritize inviting speakers from historically excluded groups! The seminar organizers would like you to continue sending your suggestions for seminar speakers from underrepresented backgrounds. Please add your suggestions to ongoing the list of URM seminar speaker recommendations.”
In other news, we continue to work closely with Bright Horizons in an effort to reopen a safe and vibrant daycare center at our on-campus facilities. Unfortunately, due to low enrollment, Bright Horizons has pushed the reopening to Monday, October 18. They are currently expanding their marketing efforts in the local community, hoping to reach the minimum of 15 families needed to run a sustainable operation. Please reach out to Edie Miller if you have any questions or want to learn more.
Hurricane Ida is long gone but, unfortunately, we are still dealing with the aftermath of extensive flooding in the Seismology, Paleomagnetics, and Butler (Admin) Buildings. While the Facilities team continues to work with specialized remediation contractors, and Jim Davis and Meredith Nettles are helping to find office space for those in Seismology that need to relocate in the short term, I want to reflect on the bigger picture at Lamont. I am painfully aware of how mismatched the quality of our infrastructure and buildings are to that of our scientists, in their extraordinary research, knowledge, and impact on the world. The space we work in, where we spend most of our days, is so crucial to our quality of life and the inspiration we take from our surroundings. Yet, a good number of our buildings are decaying, inefficient, ugly, and even constructed quickly and cheaply without true foundations (a tennis court…really?). I’m talking about you Seismology and Butler!
These, and other buildings, need to be replaced by a beautiful, net-zero modern structure equal to the importance of the mission we are trying to achieve here. Other buildings (Lamont Hall or Oceanography, for instance) need complete renovations to achieve the same ambitions. Often people ask me, “How do we advance the science at Lamont?” and it is hard for me not to think and talk about the appalling state of so many of our buildings. I just want everyone to know there is probably not a day I don’t think about this. Last Saturday, at a garden party, I was talking with Nick Frearson, who many of you know. We were talking about what it would take to transform the Lamont campus into a fabulous “Googleplex” of Earth and climate science. Nick said, “But it’s already the Google campus, you just can’t tell by looking at it. You have to look under the hood.” I love that thought and know it to be true. But so many here deserve better space and we will strive to make it happen. Many wonderful opportunities are ahead of us and our science and impact has never been more relevant to society and the health of our planet. In the meantime, I feel your frustration—not just the folks coping with the flooding aftermath in Seismo and Butler, but everyone who has had to struggle with infrastructure challenges on top of compounding pandemic issues.
I’ll end with my usual tip of the hat to the natural world. No, I will not report on the town hall meeting held in the Rose Garden last night by all the Lamont groundhogs (topic: the alien invasion). It is to recount a lovely hour I spent yesterday morning, in the rain, with tree ring scientist Nikki Davi and contemporary artist and Syracuse Professor Sam Van Aken who might be best known for his “Tree of 40 Fruits”, a grafted tree that combines 40 different types of stone fruit from around the world. His art is the perfect intersection between science, sustainability, nature, technology, and an audacity of imagination. Currently, a grove of these magical trees is planted on Governors Island (The Open Orchard), and if you wanted to give one as a xmas present to your loved one it would only set you back $28,000. Sam was excited by Nikki’s guided tour of the Tree Ring Lab and we were impressed at his deep knowledge of fruit trees (no surprise there). We have a number of different apple trees in our orchard in front of Lamont Hall, including (from Sam) a Golden Russet and an Alexander-Russian. The apples are ripening now and if you happen to be walking by and feel like trying one, the Golden Russets are delicious. And, who knows, maybe we can lure Sam and his mesmerizing trees back for an arts and sciences collaboration someday soon.
Have a peaceful weekend, Mo
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LAMONT IN THE MEDIA:
FEATURED NEWS
A New Indigenous-Led Study Documents How Ice Loss Is Changing Seal Hunts
Arctic Today
September 7, 2021
Article on research by Lamont postdoc Nathan Laxague, oceanographer Ajit Subramaniam, graduate student Carson Witte, physical oceanographer Christopher Zappa, and colleagues.
Climate Change and Its Impact on New York City
1010 WINS
September 3, 2021
Interview with Lamont geophysicist Klaus Jacob.
Why NYC Was So Unprepared For Hurricane Ida’s Flash Flooding
Gothamist
September 3, 2021
Article quotes Lamont climate scientist Adam Sobel.
Floods, Fires, and Extreme Heat: Disaster Pile-ups Are the New Norm
The Verge
September 3, 2021
Article quotes Lamont climate scientist Radley Horton.
Please Stay On The Grass: More Absorbent Streets Could Mean Less Catastrophically Flooded Subways
Streetsblog NYC
September 3, 2021
Article quotes Lamont postdoc Mona Hemmati.
Scientist on the Subway: Suzana Camargo, PhD
Scientist on the Subway
September 3, 2021
Profile of Lamont climate scientist Suzana Camargo.
Why the New York Subway Keeps Flooding—and What to Do About It
Gizmodo
September 2, 2021
Article quotes Lamont geophysicist Klaus Jacob.
The NYC Subway Is Going to Flood A Lot and There's Nothing We Will Do About It
VICE
September 2, 2021
Article quotes Lamont geophysicist Klaus Jacob.
MTA’s Resiliency Efforts No Match for Flash Floods, Gov. Hochul Says
City Limits
September 2, 2021
Article quotes Lamont geophysicist Klaus Jacob.
Why Was Ida So Devastating as It Flooded the Northeast U.S.?
AP
September 2, 2021
Article quotes Lamont climate scientist Adam Sobel.
Climate Scientist: This Is a Dystopian Moment
CNN
September 2, 2021
Opinion by Lamont climate scientist Adam Sobel.
Why Was Ida So Deadly in the New York, New Jersey Area, 1000 Miles from Landfall?
WABC TV
September 2, 2021
Article quotes Lamont climate scientist Adam Sobel.
A Subway Flood Expert Explains What Needs to Be Done to Stop Underground Station Deluges
The Conversation
September 2, 2021
Article by Lamont geophysicist Klaus Jacob.
BBC
September 2, 2021
Interview with Lamont climate scientist Suzana Camargo.
Hurricane Ida Aftermath: Here’s How Climate Change Is Making Hurricanes More Devastating
ABC News
September 1, 2021
Article quotes Lamont climate scientist Jason Smerdon.
Hurricanes Are Getting Scarier
CNN
September 1, 2021
Opinion piece by Lamont climate scientist Suzana Camargo.
Is California in a Megadrought?
KQED
August 31, 2021
Interview with Lamont climate scientist Richard Seager.
Scientists Detail Role of Climate Change in Ida's Intensity
The Hill
August 31, 2021
Article quotes Lamont climate scientist Suzana Camargo.
Perfect Storm: City Facing Deluge of Extreme Weather
Crain's New York Business
August 31, 2021
Article quotes Lamont climate scientist Adam Sobel.
As a Preview of Future Hurricanes, Ida Is ‘Very Scary.’
The New York Times
August 31, 2021
Article quotes Lamont climate scientist Suzana Camargo.
"Great Adventure of the Ice": Hidden Wonders Unearthed Beneath Greenland's Ice Sheet
Nature World News
August 30, 2021
Article quotes Lamont postdoc Guy Paxman.
Ghostly Satellite Image Captures the Arctic 'Losing Its Soul'
Grist
August 30, 2021
Article quotes Lamont polar scientist Marco Tedesco.
NJ's New Normal: More Storms, More Rainfall, More Often. Thank Climate Change
August 30, 2021
Article quotes Lamont climate scientist Suzana Camargo.
Inside Climate News
August 28, 2021
Article on study led by Lamont tree-ring scientist Nicole Davi.
The Sweaty Penguin
August 27, 2021
Interview with Lamont climate scientist Michela Biasutti (begins at 37:45).
Ghostly Satellite Image Captures the Arctic 'Losing Its Soul'
Atlas Obscura
August 27, 2021
Article quotes Lamont polar scientist Marco Tedesco.
Scientists Sailing to Gulf of Alaska to Deploy Gear to Map Seafloor
Ketchikan Daily News
August 27, 2021
Article features research cruise aboard Lamont's RV Marcus G. Langseth.
Greenland Ice Sheet's Melt Ponds Tell the Story of an Unusual Summer
Axios
August 26, 2021
Article quotes Lamont polar scientist Marco Tedesco.
'This Mine Dodged a Bullet': Massive B.C. Landslide Exposes New Era of Climate Risks
The Nawhal
August 26, 2021
Article quotes Lamont seismologist Göran Ekström.
BLOGS
September 08, 2021
Wu started her career in mathematics before coming to Lamont and applying it to climate change and atmospheric processes.
A Morning That Shook the World: The Seismology of 9/11
September 08, 2021
Seismologist Won-Young Kim heard the first reports of the World Trade Center attacks in his car as he drove to Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, on the west bank of the Hudson River 21 miles north of the attacks. Soon, he was inundated by calls from government officials and reporters. In the initial chaos, it was unclear exactly what had hit, and when; had the seismographs picked up anything?
Personal Interviews Gain Insights to Community Perspectives
September 06, 2021
Interviews provide an emotional and thoughtful connection to others through discussing and sharing over topics that they might never have a chance to discuss otherwise.
Hurricane Ida: Resources for Journalists
August 30, 2021
Disaster experts within the Earth Institute are available to answer questions from the media about hurricane physics, the role of climate change in creating strong storms, and more.
Issues of Inequity Explored By the Next Generation of Hudson River Educators
August 29, 2021
When it comes to access to nature and environmental protection of these resources, environmental resources are all too often not allocated equitably.