.gif "Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory"){kind=small}
Droughts
North American Drought Research at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
PI(s):
Dr. Richard Seager Research led by Richard Seager describes a modeling and paleoclimate perspective on the causes of North American droughts.
Natural Hazards
PI(s):
Dr. Geoffrey A. Abers Earthquakes, volcanoes, landslides, floods, drought, cyclones and other natural hazards have significant potential to affect human lives and society.
| Name | Title | Fields of interest | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dr. Brendan M. Buckley | Doherty Research Scientist | Dendrochronology, Dendroclimatology, Tropical Forest Ecosystems, Arctic Treeline Studies | |
 | Dr. Richard Seager | Palisades Geophysical Institute Senior Research Scientist | My interests are in climate variability and change on timescales of seasons to millennia and in particular the causes of multiyear droughts around the world and how climate change will impact global hydroclimate. I analyze observations, proxy climate records and model simulations and also use idealized modeling to understand the basic climate dynamic processes in the atmosphere and ocean that generate global climate variability and change. |
- December 11, 2007
Dec 10, 2007--Scientists from Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory will report this week on vital topics including new evidence of the effects of climate change; technologies to confront it; studies of eastern U.S. earthquake risk; and previously unseen inner workings of the deep polar ice caps. The reports will be presented at the fall 2007 American Geophysical Union (AGU), the largest earth-sciences gathering in the world, Dec. 10-14 in San Francisco. - May 05, 2008
Farming pushed natural drought into disaster--and could do so again.NEW YORK – Climate scientists using computer models to simulate the 1930s Dust Bowl on the U.S Great Plains have found that dust raised by farmers probably amplified and spread a natural drop in rainfall, turning an ordinary drying cycle into an agricultural collapse. The researchers say the study raises concern that current pressures on farmland from population growth and climate change could worsen current food crises by leading to similar events in other regions.
- April 21, 2009
Global Warming Could Worsen Newly Seen Pattern Researchers have developed the first year-by-year record of rainfall in sub-Saharan West Africa for the past 3,000 years, and identified a daunting pattern: a 30-to-60-year cycle of serious droughts that last a decade or more, punctuated by killer megadroughts that last for centuries.
- September 30, 2009
A 2005-2007 dry spell in the southeastern United States destroyed billions of dollars of crops, drained municipal reservoirs and sparked legal wars among a half-dozen states—but the havoc came not from exceptional dryness but booming population and bad planning, says a new study.
