Research News All

Brendan Buckley discusses his course Predicting the Effects of Climate Change on Global Forests, which is offered this spring

David Goldberg recently returned to Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory after a visiting appointment at the University of Montpellier on a “Make Our Planet Great Again” award.

Tools of the Trade is a new series that brings you inside the labs of Earth Institute scientists. Learn about the equipment scientists are using in Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory Core Repository.

Joerg Schaefer and Gisela Winckler, scientists at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, received funding from the Center for Climate and Life to examine the vulnerability of Greenland’s massive ice sheet.

A new study shows that some of Yellowstone National Park’s forests may be at a climate tipping point, and could be replaced by grassland by the middle of this century.

The report describes how “negative emissions technologies” that remove and sequester carbon dioxide from the air will need to play a significant role in mitigating climate change.

Atmospheric scientists discover surprising levels and unexpected types of pollution that seem to be originating in Africa.

A new study shows that fecal bacteria from sewage can persist in far greater quantities in near-shore sediments than in the water of the Hudson River.

Yutian Wu received funding from the Center for Climate and Life to investigate whether the loss of Arctic sea ice promotes severe weather over North America.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that limiting global warming to 1.5˚C will require removing CO_² from the atmosphere. How feasible is this?

A Q&A with Jason Smerdon, coauthor of the newly revised Climate Change: The Science of Global Warming and Our Energy Future.

Park Williams, a bioclimatologist at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, has found that rising temperatures influence wildfires in the American West.

With the GPS done, I joined the seismologists installing 32 stations in Myanmar. We finished the preparations and then headed out to the field in three teams.

Our next two sites were Kalewa to the east and Tedim to the west. To get to Kalewa we followed the Myittha River past the Kabaw Fault to the site with view of a monastery. Tedim is a long and windy drive through the mountainous Chin Hills.

There may be a significant earthquake hazard in the densely populated region along the IndoBurman subduction zone. Thus, we are in Myanmar, installing five GPSes to study it.

The award from the New York State Department of Transportation recognizes Lamont’s electric shuttle buses, bike-friendly engineering, and more.

To find out if this harmful metal is lingering in your backyard or local park, and to learn how to protect your family, bring a few scoops of soil to the Lamont-Doherty Open House on October 13.

An interview with Ed Cook, one of the founding directors of the Tree-Ring Laboratory at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.

New study reveals surprising facts behind a shrinking wetland, and suggests remedies.

A comprehensive plan outlines ways to clean up the Hudson River and reduce the impacts from development and climate change.

Our hurricane and disaster experts are standing by to answer media questions about hurricane physics, emergency response, climate change, and more

In a new study, researchers report that their physics-based model of California earthquake hazards replicated estimates from the state’s leading statistical model.

Tiny microbes called phytoplankton live beneath the ocean’s surface, producing oxygen that is essential to human survival. A new study sheds light on how these all-important diatoms survive and thrive under difficult conditions.

Scientists have known for some time that ice shelves off West Antarctica are melting as deep, warm ocean waters eat at their undersides, but a new study shows that temperatures, and resultant melting, can vary far more than previously thought, within a time scale of a few years.

The world is warming and our air conditioners are making it worse. Here are some less energy-intensive ways to survive the rising heat.

Why should we care what causes a drought?

Lamont-Doherty researchers will use the grant to enhance a sample identification system that makes scientific results more reproducible.

Superheroes are identified by their unique powers and skills, allowing them to see and act in ways that inspire awe in the rest of us. Do scientists have superhero powers?

The sounds from icebergs are constant—a bit of groaning as the waves shift the ice, and then a sharp popping like gunfire as the ice fractures, beginning its weakening.

Snow on Ice is launching into the field with two teams of scientists this summer. The first group, an ‘advance team’ of six women, will focus on lakes where meltwater has collected on the southwestern flank of Greenland bedrock.

The gift will be used to fast-track innovative high-risk, high-reward projects aimed at delivering science-based solutions to address the challenges of climate change.

Even if we limit global warming to no more than 2°C above preindustrial levels, as the Paris Agreement aims, the world is in store for some dramatic changes, according to a new study.

Yutian Wu, an atmospheric scientist seeking to understand how the rapid decline of Arctic sea ice will impact North American weather extremes, is the Center’s newest Fellow.

Thousands of years ago, the West Antarctic ice sheet shrank dramatically—then grew back in an unexpected way.

For anyone who has ever wished there were more hours in the day, geoscientists have some good news: Days on Earth are getting longer. Very slowly.

Intensifying river floods caused by global warming may hamper national economies worldwide, and effects might propagate through global trade and supply networks, a new study says.

Volcanologist Einat Lev shares incredible footage of steam plumes, lava fountains, and more from the Kilauea eruption.

In a new study in Science Advances, researchers at Columbia University show that machine learning algorithms could pick out different types of earthquakes from three years of earthquake recordings at Geysers in California. The repeating patterns of earthquakes appear to match the seasonal rise and fall of water-injection flows into the hot rocks below, suggesting a link to the mechanical processes that cause rocks to slip or crack, triggering an earthquake.

A new study has uncovered when and why the native vegetation that today dominates much of Australia first expanded across the continent.

Columbia scientists recently visited the Caribbean island of Barbados, whose fossilized coral reefs contain an exquisite record of how the ocean has risen and fallen in the past.

Sediments deposited over thousands of years provide a window to the past—and may perhaps shed light on what happened to the island’s now-lost civilization.

Climate scientist Radley Horton is bringing the effects of sea level rise to the attention of decision-makers and fostering discussions to help society confront climate change.

An international collaboration will study the wasting of the Thwaites glacier, which already accounts for around 4 percent of current global sea-level rise, and could collapse within decades or centuries.

Polar scientists Marco Tedesco and Robin Bell provide a primer on how climate change will impact our coastlines.

For decades, scientists believed that the Greenland Ice Sheet is relatively stable compared with the vulnerable West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Two Lamont scientists questioned this assumption about Greenland’s ice and wanted to take a much closer look.

Two new papers find that the line that divides the moist East and arid West is edging eastward due to climate change—and the implications for farming and other pursuits could be huge.

Sykes helped to establish plate tectonic theory in the 1960s. He is professor emeritus at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.

Lead poisoning has been in the news often over the last few years. Local high school students are helping Lamont scientists test lead exposure levels from lead-contaminated soils in New York City.

A generous donation of marine seismic technology equipment from CGG Inc. is enabling Lamont to advance its world-class ocean research capacities and opens the door to new areas of sub-seafloor exploration, including an expanded understanding of the undersea dynamics of earthquakes and tsunamis as well as climate science and impacts of sea level change.