abrupt climate change

Centers, Projects & Initiatives

 

Researchers

Name Title Fields of interest
Robert F. Anderson Ewing Lamont Research Professor Chemical Oceanography, Marine Biogeochemistry, Paleoclimatology
Jesse Farmer Graduate Student
Richard Seager Palisades Geophysical Institute/Lamont Research Professor My interests are in climate variability and change on timescales of seasons to millennia and in particular the causes of multiyear droughts around the world and how climate change will impact global hydroclimate. I analyze observations, proxy climate rec
 

News items

  • In a Warmer World, Expect the Wet to Get Wetter, and the Dry, Drier
    May 31, 2017

    The world may be getting set up for similar situation now, they say. Over the past 50 years, the middle and high latitudes in the northern hemisphere have warmed roughly twice as much as the corresponding latitudes in the southern hemisphere, and this disparity may continue to grow as Arctic sea ice continues to decline. Putnam and Broecker predict that as the atmosphere warms more quickly in the north than in the south, the thermal equator and tropical and mid-latitude rain bands will continue to march northward, but migrate less-so southward during the northern winter months.

  • Ocean Circulation Implicated in Past Abrupt Climate Changes
    June 30, 2016
    There was a period during the last ice age when temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere went on a rollercoaster ride, plummeting and then rising again every 1,500 years or so. Those abrupt climate changes wreaked havoc on ecosystems, but their cause has been something of a mystery. New evidence published this week in the leading journal Science shows for the first time that the ocean’s overturning circulation slowed during every one of those temperature plunges – at times almost stopping.
  • How Will Shifting Climate Change U.S. Forests?
    March 15, 2016
    One foggy spring morning just after a hard rain, Park Williams was tromping through the woods deep in Arkansas’ Ozark Mountains. Toiling down a steep slope, he supposedly was keeping a simultaneous eye out for rattlesnakes, copperheads, poison ivy and big old trees. Williams seemed mostly focused on the trees, though; attention to the other stuff was just slowing him down. Williams studies how forests react to changes in climate, and the Ozarks’ deeply dissected hills and hollers are a kind of ground zero for this.
  • What Everyone Should Know About Climate Change
    September 18, 2014

    Climate scientist William D’Andrea of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory asked young scientists attending a symposium last October, “What do you wish everyone knew about climate change?” He turned the responses into this video, which covers the topic pretty well.

  • Wind and Rain Belts to Shift North as Planet Warms, Says Study
    September 23, 2013

    As humans continue to heat the planet, a northward shift of Earth’s wind and rain belts could make a broad swath of regions drier, including the Middle East, American West and Amazonia, while making Monsoon Asia and equatorial Africa wetter, says a new study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

     

     

  • Earth’s Current Warmth Not Seen in the Last 1,400 Years or More, Says Study
    April 22, 2013
    Fueled by industrial greenhouse gas emissions, Earth’s climate warmed more between 1971 and 2000 than during any other three-decade interval in the last 1,400 years, according new regional temperature reconstructions covering all seven continents.  This period of manmade global warming, which continues today, reversed a natural cooling trend that lasted several hundred years, according to results published in the journal Nature Geoscience by more than 80 scientists from 24 nations analyzing climate data from tree rings, pollen, cave formations, ice cores, lake and ocean sediments, and historical records from around the world.
  • Megavolcanoes Tied to Pre-Dinosaur Mass Extinction
    March 20, 2013

    Scientists examining evidence across the world from New Jersey to North Africa say they have linked the abrupt disappearance of half of earth’s species 200 million years ago to a precisely dated set of gigantic volcanic eruptions. The eruptions may have caused climate changes so sudden that many creatures were unable to adapt—possibly on a pace similar to that of human-influenced climate warming today. The extinction opened the way for dinosaurs to evolve and dominate the planet for the next 135 million years, before they, too, were wiped out in a later planetary cataclysm.

  • New York State May Soon Suffer Outsize Effects from Climate, Says Report
    November 16, 2011

    In the first statewide climate change outlook for New York, scientists say that the state may suffer disproportionate effects in coming decades compared with other regions, due to its geography and geology. The report paints a harsh picture, including possible extreme temperature and sea-level rises, downpours, droughts and floods. The changes are projected to affect nearly every region and facet of the economy by the 2080s, from ski resorts and dairy farms to New York City’s subways, streets and businesses.

  • Lamont Scientists Present Findings on Hidden Dangers of Climate Change, Natural Hazards
    2009-11-18_1117.png
    December 11, 2007

    Dec 10, 2007--Scientists from Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory will report this week on vital topics including new evidence of the effects of climate change; technologies to confront it; studies of eastern U.S. earthquake risk; and previously unseen inner workings of the deep polar ice caps.  The reports will be presented at the fall 2007 American Geophysical Union (AGU), the largest earth-sciences gathering in the world, Dec. 10-14 in San Francisco.

  • Study Offers Preview of Ice Sheet Melting, Rapid Climate Changes
    March 14, 2006

    The retreat of a massive ice sheet that once covered much of northern Europe has been described for the first time, and researchers believe it may provide a sneak preview of how present-day ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica will act in the face of global warming.

 

Videos

The Role of Land Use and Land Cover Change in Climate Change
Rapid Change in the Arctic and the Tropics: Vulnerabilities and Opportunities
A question for early career scientists: What do you want to know about climate change?
A question for early career scientists: What do you wish everyone knew about climate change
Abrupt Climate Change and the Monsoons During the Last Glacial Period Interpretation of the Asian Speleothems
 

 

Subscribe to abrupt climate change