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Blog posts and events to help you get informed, inspired, and involved.

A new study finds that that even when air pollution in Kinshasa and Brazzaville is at its lowest, it’s still four times higher than World Health Organization guidelines.

The discovery of fossil plants below a mile of Greenland ice indicates that the ice sheet completely melted in the past, and suggests it could rapidly do so again.

The postdoctoral researcher studies hydrothermal systems and will soon go to the Chilean Andes to explore how geyser activity there may be related to glacier growth and retreat over thousands of years.

Mingfang Ting studies the connection between planetary waves in the atmosphere and climate anomalies, such as droughts and extreme heat.

Gender equality is an essential ingredient in building a fair and sustainable world. Today we’re publishing stories that honor the accomplishments of many of our women colleagues and highlight programs that push for gender equality every day.

CO2 molecules make up only a small percentage of the atmosphere, but their impact on our climate is huge. The reason comes down to physics and chemistry.

She studies Earth’s past warm periods to try to understand the future, and was just named a 2021 Sloan Research Fellow.

In honor of International Day of Women and Girls in Science, meet just a few of the extraordinary women scientists of Lamont.

She’s trying predict fecal bacteria contamination of the river, and researching how environmental degradation disproportionately harms disadvantaged communities.

In honor of the day, we’re highlighting a few women who play an essential role in the Earth Institute’s work to understand how the planet works, how humans are changing it, and how to build a sustainable future.

She takes care of hundreds of kilometers of deep-sea sediments that are invaluable to science, and recently received a mentorship award.

We’ve lost 28 trillion tons of ice globally in 24 years, from 1994 to 2017, and the implications for sea level rise could be significant.

For her work toward charting the global ocean floor, scientist Vicki Ferrini has been named by the Explorer Club as one of 50 people changing the world.

Climate scientist Gisela Winckler explains the link between climate science and solutions, and shares some of her research adventures.

Researchers have reconstructed past sea levels in the western Mediterranean in new detail by sampling coastal cave formations.

Large numbers of icebergs that drifted unusually far from Antarctica before melting into ocean waters have been key to initiating ice ages of the past, says a new study.

Our 2020 Annual Report highlights our accomplishments from July 1, 2019 to June 30, 2020.

A new study traces three-million-year-old winds to help predict future circulation patterns.

Despite the pandemic putting fieldwork on pause, the observatory contributed new knowledge about the planet, its inner workings, and its future changes.

Columbia students and faculty consider the lessons that can be learned from this year to move toward a more equitable and sustainable future.

Eight opportunities for undergraduate, graduate and PhD students to intern in various departments and research centers across the Earth Institute.

Glacial remains suggest that climate patterns in the southern hemisphere have been out of step with those in the north. Understanding why could help project the effects of modern climate change.

President Bollinger and Lamont-Doherty’s interim director underscore the university’s commitment to solving the climate crisis.

Out in the middle of the woods in New York’s exurbs, a hiker finds a TV antenna attached to a rotting oil drum. What is this?

Five women and three men were chosen by the U.S. president-elect to restore the world’s most famous agency, counting on the support of the scientific community.

This undergraduate student, blogger, and activist organized an upcoming panel around climate action that highlights diversity, inclusion, and accessibility. She shares her thoughts on the changing role of social justice within the climate movement.

The president-elect’s plan will take us closer to achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement, but there is much work to be done.

The database collects the best available evidence that anthropogenic climate change is real, that it is already here, and that predicted future changes must be taken seriously.

An international team suggests that research centers around the world using numerical models to predict future climate change should include simulations of past climates.

Installed on top of Lamont’s oceanography building, PhenoCam will help track how trees grow and change with the weather, seasons, and climate change.

Emissions from coal-fired power plants and possibly other sources in China are seeding the North Pacific Ocean with metals including iron, a nutrient important for marine life, according to new a new study.

A new “escape room–like” game for kids and families offers a fun and puzzle-filled way to explore the discoveries taking place at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.

To measure algal blooms across large regions of the Greenland ice, and understand their effects on melting over time, scientists are turning to space.

When you give to Lamont, you help us turn discovery science into solutions science.

One way in which scientists use carbon isotopes found in fossils to identify the sites of ancient rain forests may not work as expected.

If human societies don’t sharply curb emissions of greenhouse gases, Greenland’s rate of ice loss this century is likely to greatly outpace that of any century since shortly after the end of the last ice age, a new study concludes.

A new effort to analyze the ocean’s ability to take up CO2 will be important for predicting the effectiveness of climate change mitigation efforts.

The warmer it gets, the faster Antarctica will lose ice, and at some point the losses will become irreversible. That is what researchers say in a new cover story in the leading journal Nature, in which they calculate how much warming the Antarctic Ice Sheet can survive.

In this episode, Kevin Krajick explores Marco Tedesco’s obsession with the cryosphere—the part of earth that consists of frozen water.

Humanity is failing at preserving biodiversity. But a book from 2006 offers inspiration and instructions on how to preserve what’s left of it.

A new study finds that real-time monitoring of ground motion could have detected a sudden and catastrophic flood in Bhutan five hours before it destroyed a village.

A new study of the closest ancient analog to modern carbon emissions finds that massive volcanism was the main cause of high carbon at the time. But nature did not come close to matching what humans are doing today.

Newly discovered deep seabed channels beneath the Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica may be pathways for warm ocean water to melt the undersides of the ice, and contribute to sea-level rise say scientists.

Join us for our non-degree programs launching this fall and connect to timely topics around climate and sustainability.

The massive ice sheet is now locked into a certain amount of decline. But reducing emissions remains critical to preventing catastrophic loss of the entire ice sheet.

Atmospheric scientist Adam Sobel writes that yes, Hurricane Laura is about climate change, but first it’s about people.

A new study says that many of the ice shelves ringing Antarctica could be vulnerable to quick destruction if rising temperatures drive meltwater into the numerous fractures that currently penetrate their surfaces.

A new model finds that areas where humans can barely survive, which currently cover about 1 percent of the planet, will grow to about 20 percent within the next 50 years.