Director's Weekly Reports

This week provides us with a reason to appreciate all that is special about Lamont: the shared sense of scientific mission, the pervasive intellectual excitement, and the consistently collegial tenor of our interactions. 

The passing of a former colleague, even one whose Lamont affiliation was decades past, gives us another occasion for appreciation. We learned this week of the death of Lois Ongley.....

This week began with horrific reports of the devastation in the Philippines wreaked by Typhoon Haiyan (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/12/world/asia/philippines-storm-surge-leaves-scenes-of-devastation.html). In a special report posted on Sunday by CNN (http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/10/opinion/sobel-philippines-typhoon/) and in an Op Ed piece in today’s Los Angeles Times (http://www.latimes.com/opinion/commentary/la-oe-oreskes-typhoon-climate-change-20131115,0,5815422.story#axzz2kiuJRnZQ), Adam Sobel....

This week marked the first anniversary of Superstorm Sandy. There were many media stories on what the storm has taught us to expect from similar events in the future as well as promising directions for mitigation, and Lamont scientists sought out for commentary included Klaus Jacob (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/science/july-dec13/sandy_10-29.html), Art Lerner-Lam (http://billmoyers.com/2013/10/29/lessons-learned-and-unlearned-one-year-after-sandy/), and Dorothy Peteet (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/29/science/natural-allies-for-the-next-sandy.html#p2; see Science Times podcast). Adam Sobel penned an opinion piece on....

 The federal government reopened yesterday, but the damage to this nation’s scientific enterprise is still being assessed. Lamont scientists prepared at least 16 proposals to the National Science Foundation for a target submission date of 15 October, but the agency has yet to announce revised schedules for submission and evaluation (https://www.fastlane.nsf.gov/fastlane.jsp;jsessionid=bd4c5fc6aefbf05809736d5aa160:Dqk3?t=0&idx=0). More serious is the impact of the shutdown on this year’s scientific programs in Antarctica, with a key interval of austral spring now lost to fieldwork. Robin Bell was quoted in Tuesday’s edition of The New York Times on the possible consequences (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/15/us/an-american-shutdown-reaches-the-earths-end.html?_r=1&), and Hugh Ducklow was interviewed for a related story Thursday in Politico (http://www.politico.com/story/2013/10/shutdowns-science-fallout-could-last-for-years-98427.html)....

At the stroke of midnight on Tuesday, the federal government closed its doors for the first time since 1995-1996. Program managers and other staffers at federal science agencies were barred from their offices, prohibited from travel, and in many cases ordered not to conduct any business by phone or electronic mail. National parks are closed. The ensuing confusion is being watched closely by the administrations of Columbia and Lamont, but the costs to this nation of the inability of Congress to agree even on a simple continuation of government funding will mount sharply....

The autumnal equinox will occur this Sunday, and, more importantly, the end of the federal government’s fiscal year is only 10 days away. The prospects for a government stalemate over the wording in a continuing resolution or lack of agreement on a new debt ceiling renew the sense that following Congress ranks high among this nation’s premier spectator sports, albeit with a fan base substantially smaller than those of most college and professional sport....

We owe the truncated number of workdays this week to the American labor movement and to President (and former New York Governor) Grover Cleveland. As if in retaliation for the three-day weekend, fall classes at Columbia began on Tuesday morning.

This week began with a front-page Justin Gillis article in The New York Times announcing that a pending report of the International Panel on Climate Change finds it “extremely likely” that human activity contributed more than half of the increase in surface temperature over the past 60 years (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/20/science/earth/extremely-likely-that-human-activity-is-driving-climate-change-panel-finds.html?hpw). The carefully worded description of confidence continues to strengthen with each IPCC report...

When the monthly page on my wall calendar flips to August, the imminence of the new academic year can be clearly felt, much like the air in a subway station presages the approach of a train.

This week I spent the first four workdays in Washington, D.C., chairing a review panel for NASA. The panel was asked to evaluate proposals from multi-institutional teams for membership in a new Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute. The institute aims to stimulate “an innovative, broadly based research program addressing basic and applied scientific questions fundamental to ....