Lamont Weekly Report, December 5, 2014

  

     The highlight of this week is the daylong symposium today in honor of Dave Walker and his many scientific contributions to petrology and its applications to our understanding of Earth, the Moon, and other solar system bodies. The symposium, entitled “From the core to magmas to beyond the Earth,” is ongoing in the Comer seminar room. Presenters this morning included Abby Kavner (UCLA), Jackie Li (Michigan), Raj Dasgupta (Rice), Liz Cottrell (Smithsonian), Charlie Langmuir (Harvard), Tim Grove (MIT), Bruce Marsh (Johns Hopkins), and Keith Putirka (CSU Fresno). This afternoon we will hear from Chip Lesher (UC Davis), Bruce Watson (RPI), Youxue Zhang (Michigan), Carl Agee (New Mexico), and Rich Walker (Maryland). 

     On Monday, Pete Sobel and I visited Ambrose Monell and Maurizio Morello at the Vetlesen Foundation. We discussed the annual report we recently sent them on how Vetlesen grant funds have been most recently used to bolster scientific capabilities at Lamont, and the timeline for the announcement of the next recipient of the Vetlesen Prize. On Tuesday and Wednesday, Pete flew to Florida to visit Lamont Advisory Board member Ed Botwinick, who has offered his house in Stuart as a venue for a Lamont development event this winter.
 
     On Tuesday, Lee Bollinger issued a call for a third round of proposals to the President’s Global Innovation Fund. The fund is designed to provide support for faculty who seek to use the resources or facilities of one or more of Columbia University’s eight Global Centers for teaching or research activities. Two categories of proposals are sought, planning grants (for no longer than one year and up to $20,000) and project grants (for up to $50,000/year for a period of up to three years). The deadline for submission of proposals is February 10, 2015.  
 
     Also on Tuesday, members of Lamont’s Junior Staff were invited to apply to the open Palisades Geophysical Institute (PGI) Young Scientist chair. The chair is awarded for four years or until promotion to Senior Staff, whichever occurs first. To apply, please submit an updated CV and Current and Pending Support statement to Kim Schermerhorn (kschermerhorn@ldeo.columbia.edu) by next Friday.
 
     The meeting of the Dean’s Council on Thursday was primarily devoted to initial steps in the budget preparation process for the next academic year. Columbia’s Executive Vice President for Finance, Anne Sullivan, reported that we can look forward to an increase in the income from endowment and a decrease in the non-government fringe benefit rate, but we will also see an increase next year in common costs. These constraints will frame the 2015-2016 budget that the Observatory prepares in the next couple of months.
 
     In today’s issue of Science is a paper, coauthored by Peter deMenocal and led by Bette Otto-Bliesner of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, on the possible cause of the hemispheric coherence of the early African Humid Period, which began abruptly in both southeastern equatorial and northern Africa about 15,000 years ago. The team found that, following a period of reduced precipitation tied to a reduction in the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation, a combination of increasing greenhouse gas concentrations and high summer insolation in the northern hemisphere can account for the hemispheric coherence of the onset of wetter conditions.
 
     Several Lamont scientists contributed to public outreach activities this week. On Saturday, Einat Lev was the feature of a blog in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz (http://blogs.haaretz.co.il/sivanklingbail/9254/) as part of their series “365 days in the lives of 365 people.” Einat, who chose a typical workday during her recent research exchange trip to the Earthquake Research Institute at the University of Tokyo, writes, “It was important to me to show that it is possible to do science, have a family, and travel, sometimes even all at once! She added, “It is in Hebrew, but pretty self explanatory.” On Monday, journalists from Climate Central toured Lamont, including a stopover at the Core Repository hosted by Mo Raymo (http://lamontlog.tumblr.com/). This evening at the International Center of Photography, as part of their Friday Evenings with Climate Scientists series, Art Lerner-Lam will lead a walkthrough of the gallery of climate-change photographs by Sebastião Salgado (http://www.icp.org/events/2014/december/05/friday-evenings-climate-scientists-arthur-lerner-lam).
 
     Next week, only one week before the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting, promises to be busy. On Monday morning, Pedro Sanchez is hosting a Town Hall Meeting in Monell Auditorium on behalf of the university-wide Forum, inaugurated by Lee Bollinger last March, “on the question of what is a global university, and, in particular, what is a ‘global Columbia.’” As the only representative of the Lamont campus on the committee that is leading that effort, Pedro hopes to collect ideas from campus scientists on the key issues and opportunities for Columbia as a global university over the rest of this century. I encourage you to attend.
 
     On Wednesday afternoon next week, Lamont’s Advisory Board will hold their fourth meeting of the calendar year. The primary agenda item will be a presentation to the Board by Tim Crone and Ryan Abernathey on the fifth and final scientific initiative in Lamont’s Strategic Plan, the “Real-Time Earth” initiative.
 
     This afternoon, as a capstone to today’s symposium in honor of Dave Walker, the Earth Science Colloquium will be given by Ed Stolper, the Provost and William E. Leonhard Professor of Geology at Caltech (http://www.gps.caltech.edu/content/edward-m-stolper). Ed will continue the theme of the day with his talk on “Seconds after impact: Insights into the thermal history of tektites.” I hope that you can join me for a view of terrestrial impacts through a glass lens.
 
 
             Sean