Arctic

Centers, Projects & Initiatives

 
 

News items

  • State of the Arctic: Longer Melting Seasons, Thinning Sea Ice
    December 13, 2016

    The Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet, and scientists are seeing the effects across ice and ecosystems. The average annual air temperature over Arctic land is now 3.5°C (6.5°F) warmer than it was 1900, Greenland is experiencing longer melting seasons, and this year’s spring snow cover extent set a record low in the North American Arctic, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s newly released 2016 Arctic Report Card.

  • New Project Puts Drones to Work Studying Sea Ice Change
    December 09, 2016

    The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation announced a $3.7 million grant to Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory to support research that couples state-of-the-art geophysical observations from unmanned aerial systems with a community-engaged research approach to bridge scientific and indigenous understanding of sea ice change in the Alaskan Arctic.

  • When Permafrost Melts, What Happens to All That Stored Carbon?
    December 02, 2016

    The Arctic’s frozen ground contains large stores of organic carbon that have been locked in the permafrost for thousands of years. As global temperatures rise, that permafrost is starting to melt, raising concerns about the impact on the climate as organic carbon becomes exposed. A new study is shedding light on what that could mean for the future by providing the first direct physical evidence of a massive release of carbon from permafrost during a warming spike at the end of the last glacial period.

  • Kenneth Hunkins, Arctic Oceanographer
    September 03, 2014

    Kenneth Hunkins, an oceanographer who made many key 20th-century observations about the Arctic Ocean, often while camping for months on its frozen surface, died in his sleep at his home in Tappan, N.Y., on Sept. 2. He was 86. Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, where he had spent his entire career, confirmed his death.

  • Climate and the Opal Artisans of the Sea
    May 12, 2014

    Tiny one-celled organisms called radiolaria are ubiquitous in the oceans, but various species prefer distinct habitats. Thus it aroused considerable intrigue in 2012 when protozoa specialist O. Roger Anderson and colleagues published a study showing that radiolaria normally found near the equator were suddenly floating around in arctic waters above Norway. Was this a sign that global climate change was bringing an invasion of warm-weather plankton?

  • The Arctic’s Secret Garden
    October 11, 2013

    The small town of Barrow, Alaska is perched on a point of land 320 miles above the Arctic Circle, where stark, flat tundra stretches in one direction and a vast expanse of Arctic Ocean extends to the horizon in the other. For most of the year a thick layer of sea ice covers this entire ocean. Even during the height of summer, a partial covering of ice remains, and the ocean temperature doesn’t rise above 35 degrees Fahrenheit. Despite these seemingly inhospitable conditions, tiny marine organisms thrive in this frigid environment.

  • High-Arctic Heat Tops 1,800-Year High, Says Study
    September 27, 2012

    Summers on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard are now warmer than at any other time in the last 1,800 years, including during medieval times when parts of the northern hemisphere were as hot as, or hotter, than today, according to a new study in the journal Geology.

  • Studying the Farthest-North Trees
    July 12, 2011

    A team led by Kevin Anchukaitis of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory Tree Ring Lab is currently in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, studying the effects of changing climate on trees. Ferried in by a bush pilot who landed on the tundra to drop them off, they are practically at treeline–the place where it is too far north for trees to grow. But there are still some spindly white spruces here, and they are taking cores from these, which can be used to measure weather of the past.

 

Videos

Rapid Change in the Arctic and the Tropics: Vulnerabilities and Opportunities
Researchers crack the ice to study the Arctic marine food web - Science Nation
Ken Hunkins Memorial
Life in and under Arctic Sea Ice Featuring LDEO scientist Andrew Juhl
NOVA | Secrets Beneath the Ice Featuring LDEO Scientist Robin Bell
bell.jpg Changes in the Arctic and Antarctic Featuring LDEO scientist Robin Bell
 

 

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