Hello Friends, The end of the summer is nigh. And weirdly, I feel that little knot in my stomach that came with going-back-to-school as a child. We’ve shared (remotely) such a profoundly bizarre last 18 months, filled with stress, anxiety, loss, a complete disruption of routine but, hopefully, some small moments of grace within it all. But now we must all return to work/school. I imagine there is a lot of anxiety out there right now and I hope we can all be a little gentle with each other as we try to navigate back to yet another new normal.
The covid requirements and guidelines can seem ever-changing and the directorate will be sending out a dedicated email next week with the most up-to-date information. We will also be sponsoring a Town Hall on Sept 3rd at noon, and our ambassadors Nicole deRoberts and Kaleigh Matthews are just an email or phone call away. Everyone coming to our campus will be vaccinated with the exception of a very small number with medical or religious exemptions. Currently everyone should be masked inside, except teachers who can be unmasked when lecturing if six feet away. More info to come but I think the most important thing we need to remember is how safe our campus has been and how our commitment to safety should keep it that way. Please also share any concerns you have with the directorate. We want to be as responsive as possible and make this crucial step back to normalcy as stress-free as possible.
All of that said, I am personally so excited to see people back on campus and am more than happy to sacrifice my furry, featured, and scaled animal sightings as we humanoids reassert our dominion over the landscape of our campus. While we postponed the all-hands barbecue in an abundance of caution, the Directorate does plan to host regular small gatherings with groups on campus, starting in September and with the graduate students, and then the post-docs. I know an inspiring line-up of talks will also be happening, including two more summer stars lectures that have drifted into fall (it’s summer somewhere?). And I hope the TGIF crowd comes back to life—if any financial assistance is needed from Directorate, please reach out.
Many fascinating science “things” have happened lately including two amazing finds that were forwarded to my office. The first is the largest Mg nodule I have ever seen which was unearthed by Repository Curator Nichole Anest in the warehouse, and the second is the first seismograph taken with a Lamont seismometer placed on the lunar surface by Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins. Both are very cool and I will bring them out onto the patio during the aforementioned social events.
DEES professor Adam Sobel was quoted extensively in the media as Hurricane Henri roared through last week. I want to extend him a personal thanks for up-to-the-minute advice on the height of the likely storm surge in the Hudson River. We had a SWAT team led by Margie Turrin and Andy Reed, ready to evacuate the Hudson River Field Station at a moment’s notice. Also quoted in the New York Times and elsewhere was Marco Tedesco commenting on the first ever rainy day at the summit of the Greenland ice sheet. Yes, file that under depressing news we saw coming.
In the opposite of depressing news, DEES Professor and Chair Sidney Hemming and Associate Research Scientist Stephen Cox received an exciting notice from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. Sid and Stephen are the recipients of an over $2 million grant titled “Next Generation Mass Spectrometer for Noble Gas Geochronology” which they will use to push the frontier of analytical beastiness and build a better mass spec. And as any self-respecting geochemist knows, new measurement capabilities open up incredible new frontiers of questions that can be pursued. Congrats Steve and Sid!
Congratulations also to DEES graduate student Nicholas Bock who successfully defended his thesis on “Drivers of variability in the structure and function of marine microbial communities: From cell physiology to the global environment”. And also to Sandra Braumann who received the 2020 Montafoner Science Award for an article titled "Holocene glacier change in the Silvretta Massif (Austrian Alps) constrained by a new 10Be chronology, historical records and modern observations". The article is part of Sandra’s PhD project and it was prepared in collaboration with Joerg Schaefer from Lamont. Joerg added "Sandra is finishing her PhD at BOKU Vienna and she has been spent a lot of time with us at Lamont, she also has a scientific home here. She is a wonderful young scientist, a rising star in Glacier and Climate Science in the Alps, and a role model, as she is the first in her family to go to college and into academia."
Another feted article by Lamont Research Professor Alberto Malinverno was published by AGU and titled “A Late Cretaceous-Eocene Geomagnetic Polarity Time Scale (MQSD20) that steadies spreading rates on multiple mid-ocean ridge flanks”. It ranked among the journal’s top 10% most downloaded articles in 2020. Congratulations Alberto! And to all Cenozoic Paleoceanography alumni out there, please note another key contribution to the crucial canon of chronology!
Once again in the running for coolest mom in the world, Lamont Associate Research Professor Einat Lev was interviewed for an article in the August 23 issue of The New Yorker titled “Chasing The Lava Flow In Iceland”. Einat was over there with her 8-year-old daughter (“It was “an extreme ‘bring your child to work’ opportunity,””) sampling and observing the Fagradalsfjall volcano. No doubt it will be a “What I did this Summer” essay that will be hard to top!
I want to end by acknowledging the passing of two long-time members of the Lamont family. Ken Peters, who worked in the Tree-Ring Laboratory, passed on August 16, 2021. He was a very talented applied mathematician, computer programmer, and quirky friend to all at the lab. Before beginning work at the TRL in the late-1970s, Ken worked for Marcus Langseth on the analysis of Apollo 15 lunar heat flow data. After being hired by the TRL to take on some mathematical programming challenges, Ken was asked by Ed Cook to look at an interesting paper about “Smoothing by Spline Functions” to see how it could be applied to the processing of tree-ring data. Although not described as a low-pass digital filter, Ken immediately saw that conceptual connection to the smoothing spline and spent a considerable amount of time deriving its precise theoretical filtering properties. This result is explained in detail in “The Cubic Smoothing Spline as a Digital Filter” (K. Peters and E. Cook, LDGO Technical Report No. CU-1-81/TRL), which led to the smoothing spline becoming the most widely used filtering and smoothing method in dendrochronology worldwide. Ken continued to contribute his innovative mathematical insights into tree-ring analysis methods throughout his longtime collaboration with Ed. His mathematical talent greatly contributed to the development of the TRL as an innovative world leader in dendrochronology and he will be greatly missed by all who knew him well.
The second, extremely sad loss is that of Bruce E. Baez, a member of our Facilities staff and known to many as "Buddha", who passed away on Saturday, August 14th. “He had a contagious smile and a laugh that was heard for miles. Bruce was a lifetime member at both Piermont and Tappan Volunteer Fire Departments. He worked as a specialty mechanic at Lamont-Doherty for 32 years.” A number of deeply moving tributes to Bruce have been circulated on email over the last two weeks. He truly was a person who made you happier just being around him and I know many of us on campus will miss him for a long time to come.
Truly a moment to reflect on friendships and family in an uncertain, unpredictable world.
Mo
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LAMONT IN THE MEDIA:
FEATURED NEWS
How City Design Is Making Heat Waves Deadlier - Cheddar Explains
Cheddar
August 24, 2021
Video features Lamont climate scientist Radley Horton.
Rise and Fall of Water Blisters Offers Glimpse Beneath Greenland’s Thick Ice Sheet
Science Daily
August 23, 2021
Article on study co-authored by former Lamont glaciologist Timothy Creyts.
BBC News Mundo
August 23, 2021
Article quotes Lamont glaciologist Indrani Das.
Unprecedented Central Asia Warming Confirmed by New Way of Analyzing Tree Rings
SciTech Daily
August 22, 2021
Article on study led by Lamont tree-ring scientist Nicole Davi.
‘Unprecedented’: Rain Falls at Greenland Ice Summit for First Time
The Age
August 21, 2021
Article quotes Lamont glaciologist Indrani Das.
Determining Where Henri Will Make Landfall is a Major Challenge. New York Is a Possibility.
The New York Times
August 20, 2021
Article by Lamont climate scientist Adam Sobel.
Henri Is Unlikely to Be Another Superstorm Sandy. Here’s Why.
The New York Times
August 20, 2021
Article by Lamont climate scientist Adam Sobel.
It Rained at the Summit of Greenland. That’s Never Happened Before.
The New York Times
August 20, 2021
Article quotes Lamont polar scientist Marco Tedesco.
Rain Falls at Greenland Ice Summit for First Time on Record
Reuters
August 20, 2021
Article quotes Lamont glaciologist Indrani Das.
Rain Falls for First Time at the Summit of Greenland’s Ice Sheet
Fox23 News
August 20, 2021
Article quotes Lamont polar scientist Marco Tedesco.
New Dataset Can Help Explore Issues at the Crossroads of Racial, Social and Climate Justice
Azo Cleantech
August 20, 2021
Article on dataset created by Lamont polar scientist Marco Tedesco, postdoc Carolynne Hultquist, and CIESIN's Alex de Sherbinin.
The Most Influential Women in History of Science
24/7 Wall St.
August 19, 2021
Article features pioneering Lamont geologist Marie Tharp.
The World Is Starting to Pivot on Climate. It’s Not Enough.
Barron's
August 16, 2021
Commentary by AllianceBernstein chief responsibility officer Michelle Dunstan, Columbia Center for Sustainable Investment diretor Lisa Sachs, and Columbia Climate School senior advisor to the deans Art Lerner-Lam.
Chasing the Lava Flow in Iceland
The New Yorker
August 16, 2021
Article features Lamont volcanologist Einat Lev.
Article cites research by Lamont paleoclimatologist Dorothy Peteet.
Alaska Native News
August 13, 2021
Article cites research by Lamont paleoclimatologist Dorothy Peteet.
Lava from Bali Volcanoes Offers Window into Earth’s Mantle
Eos
August 13, 2021
Article quotes Lamont volcanologist Terry Plank.
Geophysics Professor Sails North in Search of Deep-Sea Answer
Alaska Native News
August 13, 2021
Article on research by Lamont PhD geophysicist Bernard Coakley.
Warfare, Not Climate, Is Driving Resurgent Hunger in Africa, Says Study
Science Daily
August 12, 2021
Article on research led by then Columbia IRI postdoc Weston Anderson with Lamont climate scientist Richard Seager, postdoc Fabien Cottier, and other Columbia and NYU colleagues.
BLOGS
Upcoming Scientific Fieldwork: 2021 and Beyond
August 24, 2021
Earth Institute researchers are in the field studying the dynamics of the planet on every continent and every ocean. Here is a list of projects.
A New Dataset Could Aid Climate Justice Research
August 19, 2021
Researchers have combined information about social vulnerability with data on mortgages, evictions, and threats from climate change. The new dataset will be freely available to other researchers.
New Way of Analyzing Tree Rings Confirms Unprecedented Central Asia Warming
August 17, 2021
Researchers have reconstructed temperatures in Mongolia all the way back to 1269 C.E., showing that recent temperatures are the warmest the region has seen in eight centuries.
Fall 2021 Internship Opportunities
August 16, 2021
The Earth Institute is offering undergraduate, graduate and PhD students opportunities to intern in various departments and research centers in a variety of administrative, communications and research roles.
Fall 2021 Undergraduate Research Assistant Opportunities
August 16, 2021
The Earth Institute is offering undergraduate students research assistant opportunities during the fall 2021 semester.
Warfare, Not Climate, Is Driving Resurgent Hunger in Africa, Says Study
August 12, 2021
A 2009-2018 analysis of 14 countries teases out the factors behind reversals in food security. Conflict, not drought, is behind much of it.