Lamont Weekly Report, January 28, 2022

Hello Friends,  Will it?  Won’t it?  What hath Mother Nature in store for us now?  From the NYTimes:
“Forecasters said there was potential for heavy snow and high winds for eastern portions of the New York City region on Friday through Saturday night, but stressed an “unusual amount of uncertainty” in snow amounts.”  Hmm, just like the good ole days before weather forecasting got so good.  We announced already that the Saturday shuttle is cancelled.  If campus closes, please stay at home unless it is critical to be here—our facilities team will be busy plowing.

The January 27 issue of Columbia News Awards & Milestones Newsletter announced that five Columbia researchers were named American Association for the Advancement of Sciences Fellows, among them Nicholas Christie-Blick, Professor in DEES and the SGT Division at Lamont.  Congrats Nick!

In an article in The Conversation titled "Offshore wind farms could help capture carbon from air and store it long-term, saving money – a geophysicist explains how", David Goldberg, Lamont Research Professor and Deputy Director, explains.  He lays out some new ideas for combining off-shore wind technology with carbon capture and storage goals that leverage the large planned infrastructure build-outs off our coasts. Wouldn’t that be cool, creating clean energy while burying the pollution of dirty energy at the same time!

Today I participated in a Columbia Global Centers event, in their University Leadership Series.  It was titled "Columbia's New Climate School: How It Plans to Make a Difference", with Alex Halliday, Ruth DeFries, and myself along with Julie Kornfeld, Vice Provost for Academic Programs, and Safwan Masri, Executive Vice-President for Global Centers and Global Development at Columbia. It was great seeing Columbia colleagues from the Centers zooming in from all over the world.

As the Office of Research continues to grow, I’d like to welcome Kelsi Welter who is the new Senior Grants Manager. In this role, Kelsi will support proposal development, collaborating with all stages of researchers, administrators, and external sponsors to help develop high-quality and large grant applications. Kelsi comes to the Climate School and Lamont from Sponsored Projects Administration at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, where she was a Senior Project Officer for the last three years. The Research Office staff are spending time on both campuses weekly and will continue to engage enthusiastically with our scientists at LDEO, IRI, and CIESIN as they build out programs to support career advancement and grant success.

Finally, I hope you will all join me this afternoon for this year’s Diversity Seminar on “Who gets geoscience degrees?”, presented by Rachel E. Bernard, Assistant Professor of Geology at Amherst College. As we strive to build a campus and school where resources and opportunities for advancement are distributed equitably, it behooves us to reflect on the often ingrained and sometimes unacknowledged biases in our systems.  I am proud every week to be part of a community where these types of conversations are happening regularly.  Yes, academia is a meritocracy, albeit sometimes imperfect, but having doors opened to you and having the space, salary, start-up, and family support resources to compete and thrive on a level playing field with your peers has got to be our guiding principle if we hope to change the face of the geosciences. 

Best, Mo
 

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LAMONT IN THE MEDIA: 

FEATURED NEWS

 

Offshore Wind Farms Could Help Capture Carbon from Air and Store It Long-term, Saving Money – A Geophysicist Explains How

The Conversation

January 25, 2022

Article by David Goldberg, Deputy Director, Marine/Large Programs Associate Director, and Lamont Research Professor at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.
 

Lisa Goddard, 55, Dies; Brought Climate Data to Those Who Needed It

New York Times

January 22, 2022

Obituary for the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI) scientist; quotes Climate School dean Alex Halliday; Lamont director Maureen Raymo; and IRI director John Furlow.

(picked up by many news-aggregator sites)

 

BLOGS

 

How Climate Change Will Affect Plants

By Renee Cho

January, 27 2022

“While elevated levels of CO2 can help plants grow, the impacts of climate change mean it’s not all good news for the plant world.”

 

Looking at the Seafloor Without Water

By Guest Blogger

January 26, 2022

“Along the Enriquillo fault, large-scale submarine landslides provide possible evidence of earthquakes.”

 

Lisa Goddard: Led Global Efforts to Advance Near-Term Climate Forecasting

By Kevin Krajick

January 21, 2022

“Lisa Goddard, longtime director of the International Research Institute for Climate and Society, has died.”

 

New Film Explores Combining Indigenous Knowledge and Western Science to Understand Waning Arctic Sea Ice

By Columbia Climate School

January 21, 2022

“A launch event will include clips from the film; discussion by Iñupiaq elders, scientists and the filmmaker; and audience Q&A.”