The week kicked off with Lamont’s Open House on Saturday. Despite a rainy morning, interest ran high among the students, neighbors, and curious members of the public who contributed to the final attendance total of 2770. In tents and in our buildings, visitors experienced hands-on science, toured laboratories and exhibits, and enjoyed a diverse menu of talks and panel discussions. Thanks to the considerable creative efforts of hundreds of Lamont and Earth Institute volunteers, our guests had a memorably engaging experience. The (Rockland) Journal News chronicled the event with a video, complete with a simulated volcanic eruption (http://www.lohud.com/videos/news/local/rockland/2014/10/11/17127359/).
Also this week, the campus received the terrific news that Göran Ekström is to receive the 2015 Beno Gutenberg Medal of the European Geophysical Union (http://www.egu.eu/news/126/egu-announces-2015-awards-and-medals/). Named for the famed global seismologist, the Gutenberg Medal has since 2004 been given approximately annually by the EGU’s Division on Seismology for “outstanding contributions to seismology” (http://www.egu.eu/awards-medals/beno-gutenberg/). The medal will be given at EGU’s 2015 General Assembly, to be held in Vienna, Austria, next April. Please join me in congratulating Göran on this well-earned honor.
The R/V Langseth completed the Eastern North American Margin (ENAM) Community Seismic Experiment this week off North Carolina after logging ~4,800 km of multi-channel seismic survey lines shot to a network of ocean-bottom seismometers. In addition, acoustic researchers from NOAA and Duke University collected environmental and acoustic data during the work. Despite challenging surveying conditions because of the strong influence of the Gulf Stream on the orientation of the seismic streamer, weather was good and the cruise was completed ahead of schedule. Chief scientist Donna Shillington writes, “Onboard analysis of the data has already revealed a number of exciting observations, from anomalously deep Moho reflections beneath the old oceanic crust formed during the early opening of the Atlantic Ocean to intriguing structures associated with relatively recent major submarine landslides. This community experiment brought nine young scientists and graduate students to sea to collect seismic reflection data for the first time and resulted in a very dynamic training and research environment on the ship.” The ship is now returning to port and will arrive in Norfolk, Virginia, tomorrow morning. Evidence of the mood among the scientific party may been seen on the ENAM blog site (http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/research/blogs/enam-seismic-experiment).
Adam Sobel’s book on Hurricane Sandy, Storm Surge, hit the bookstores on Tuesday. Even objective reviews are strongly positive (https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/adam-sobel/storm-surge-hurricane-sandy/), so this book belongs on your fall reading list. Also on Tuesday, Kevin Krajick posted a Q&A session with Adam on the Earth Institute’s State of the Planet blog site (http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2014/10/14/eye-on-the-storm/).
On Wednesday, I was part of a discussion held with Ted Bianco, Director of Environment, Nutrition and Health for Wellcome Trust. The interplay between the environment, including climate change, and the fields of nutrition and health is a new focus area for Wellcome, and Ted is visiting Columbia for several weeks to learn about the range of ongoing research here that overlaps the foundation’s interests. Madeleine Thomson of IRI, host for Ted’s visit, arranged for the meeting, which included Michela Biasutti, Art Lerner-Lam, Kim Schermerhorn, Richard Seager, Jason Smerdon, Pete Sobel, and IRI’s Benno Blumenthal, as well as Madeleine and me. Discussion ranged broadly over research on the Lamont Campus on climate change, both natural and anthropogenic, and its application at regional scales to interannual and longer-term variations in factors that affect health and sustainability.
A Ph.D. double header was held this morning. In Comer, Alison Hartman defended her thesis, completed under the supervision of Steve Goldstein, on “The Nd composition of Atlantic water masses: Implications for the past and present.” At nearly the same time in the Seismology Seminar Room, Wenchang Yang – a student of Richard Seager, Mark Cane, and Mingfang Ting – defended his thesis on “The hydroclimate of East Africa: Seasonal cycle, decadal variability, and human-induced climate change.” To Drs. Hartman and Yang, congratulations!
Several Lamont scientists were in the news this week. A paper by Ben Cook, Richard Seager, and Jason Smerdon recently posted online by Geophysical Research Letters documenting that the Dust Bowl year 1934 was the worst American drought year of the last millennium was the focus of articles in Scientific American (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/us-dust-bowl-unrivalled-in-past-1-000-years/) and other media. Art Lerner-Lam was quoted in an NBC News story Tuesday on the earthquake potential of faults in the San Francisco area (http://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/locked-faults-could-pop-big-earthquake-bay-area-study-n224801). A WNYC story Sunday (http://www.wnyc.org/story/nyc-2050-higher-sea-levels/) on the consequences for and possible mitigations of rising sea level in the New York City area included comments from Klaus Jacob. This month’s issue of The Record includes a piece (http://news.columbia.edu/files_columbianews/imce_shared/4002WEB.pdf) on one of the stops on David Walker’s regular geological tour of the Morningside Campus. And on Kat Allen’s Geopoetry page (http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/research/blogs/geopoetry) an entry today on the solar corona is alongside recent verses on ocean acidification and brown tides.
A highlight of next week will be a symposium on climate science honoring Mark Cane, on the occasion of his 70th birthday. Organizers of the symposium include Adam Sobel and four of Mark’s former students: Richard Seager, Steve Zebiak from IRI, Jeff Shaman from the Mailman School, and John Chiang from the University of California, Berkeley. The symposium presentations, scheduled for Monday and Tuesday in the Monell auditorium (http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/~virginia/Mark70thSymposium/), will be given by a distinguished group of climate scientists from around the world. A reception will follow the end of the session on Monday.
Also on Monday evening, as part of the ongoing program on climate change at the International Center of Photography in Midtown, there will be a panel discussion on Greening the Economy (http://www.icp.org/events/2014/october/20/greening-economy). The event, conducted in partnership with Lamont and IRI, will be moderated by Art Lerner-Lam.
This afternoon’s Earth Science Colloquium will be given by Michael Walter, a Professor in and Head of the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol. An experimental petrologist and mineral physicist, Mike will be speaking on “The deep carbon cycle revealed in superdeep diamonds.” Shine bright like a diamond and take in the talk.
Sean