This week included the second anniversary of the landfall of Hurricane Sandy, and the media responded with stories that recalled the storm and looked ahead to how the region may better prepare for such storms in the future. Adam Sobel, for instance, appeared on The Leonard Lopate Show on WNYC on Wednesday (http://www.wnyc.org/story/storm-surge/) and was quoted in a Climate Central piece the same day on the impact of Sandy on climate research (http://www.climatecentral.org/news/two-years-later-sandy-inspires-storm-of-climate-research-18248). Klaus Jacob was cited in The Huffington Post (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/29/sandy-anniversary-nyc_n_6062766.html) and the International Business Times (http://www.ibtimes.com/hurricane-sandy-anniversary-2014-fortifying-new-york-how-well-armored-are-we-next-1711729), among other stories, on the mitigating actions that New York City might take to prepare for the next comparable superstorm.
Rebecca Fowler has been in control this week of the Instagram account of the International Center of Photography (ICP) as part of their series of "takeovers" by scientists and photographers to address climate change issues. Following in the footsteps of Nicole Davi last week and Joshua Wolfe earlier, Rebecca has been posting photos of Lamont climate scientists at work in the lab and in the field (http://instagram.com/icp).
On Monday, the October issue of Lamont’s electronic newsletter (http://us2.campaign-archive2.com/?u=71431ee4099fcd9f2e20d401a&id=453ab50c35) was distributed to all subscribers. In addition to a story on this fall’s collaboration by Lamont, IRI, and ICP to raise public awareness of climate change, the newsletter includes pieces on Lamont’s role in last week’s Day in the Life of the Hudson River event and the discovery by our multi-channel seismology group that a layered system of magma lenses marks the locus of oceanic crustal formation along the East Pacific Rise. Links to media articles that cite or discuss the work of Lamont scientists and mention of a notable award I am to receive round out the issue.
On Tuesday evening, as part of a Science Lecture Series on Exploring Antarctica at the Bruce Museum, in Greenwich, Connecticut (https://brucemuseum.org/site/education_detail/science-lecture-series-exploring-antarctica), Robin Bell spoke to an audience of about 100 on the topic of “A new era of exploration of our changing poles.” Her talk stressed the beauty of the poles, the modern era of exploration, and our growing understanding of the dynamics of polar ice sheets in a changing climate. Margie Turrin will be giving a lecture in the same series next month.
I spent Tuesday through Thursday in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where I chaired a meeting of the MESSENGER Science Team. The regular perturbations to our spacecraft’s orbit by the gravitational tug of the Sun progressively reduce the altitude at closest approach with each orbit. Some of the most recent orbits, which reached altitudes as low as 25 km, have yielded images and geochemical and geophysical measurements of unprecedented resolution, so the team had much to discuss this week. Those same perturbations, after our propellant is exhausted early next year, will spell the end of our mission, about six months from now.
Late last week, the state of New York announced that they are acquiring a conservation easement for Black Rock Forest. The 3800-acre preserve 50 miles north of New York City is maintained by the Black Rock Forest Consortium, for which Kevin Griffin serves as President. The agreement will protect the forest for public and scientific use, as described in a Kim Martineau story posted on Lamont’s web site yesterday (http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/news-events/agreement-ny-state-protects-black-rock-forest).
Lamont welcomed two new Postdoctoral Research Scientists late this week. Sarah Purkey, a physical oceanographer who recently defended her Ph.D. at the University of Washington, joins the Ocean and Climate Physics Division. An expert on the Southern Ocean, Sarah has been studying changes in the heat and freshwater inventories of the deep ocean. With Lamont colleagues Ryan Abernathey, Arnold Gordon, and Stan Jacob, she will be investigating specific mechanisms for these changes, with an emphasis on the Southern Ocean, and how they affect the global budget of carbon dioxide. Sarah will also be working with Bill Smethie and Samar Khatiwala in the Geochemistry Division.
Jeff Bowman, a biological oceanographer who also holds a recent Ph.D. from the University of Washington, joins the Biology and Paleo Environment Division. At Lamont, Jeff will work with Hugh Ducklow and others on ecological and genomic relationships between phytoplankton and heterotrophic bacteria in the Antarctic coastal ecosystem. He will test the hypothesis that specific bacterial and phytoplankton species form time- and space-dependent relationships to mutually enhance growth and carbon cycling. To investigate these microscale relationships, Jeff will develop flow cytometric techniques in collaboration with Solange Duhamel.
Today’s Earth Science Colloquium will be given by Jim Zachos, a Professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and an expert on the biological, chemical, and climatic evolution of the late Mesozoic and Cenozoic (http://es.ucsc.edu/~jzachos/JamesZachos/Professor_EPS.html). Jim’s talk today will be on “The hydrologic response to rapid warming in the early Eocene.” Given the downturn in local temperatures, you may need a dose of rapid warming. I hope that you will be able to attend.
Sean