Unrelenting rains led to a miserable famine in Europe from 1315-1317. Just how wet was it? A new study reveals that the beginning of the famine included some of the wettest years in the last 700 years.
drought
Researchers
| Name | Title | Fields of interest | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Weston Anderson | Postdoctoral Research Scientist | Drought, Hydroclimate, Food Security | |
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A. Park Williams | Lamont Associate Research Professor, Senior Staff |
News items
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September 22, 2020
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August 11, 2020
Compound risk — when multiple risks occur simultaneously, or one after another — was the topic of a recent discussion as part of the Resilience Media Project, a part of the Initiative on Communication and Sustainability at the Earth Institute.
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September 04, 2019
Park Williams and Richard Seager, climate experts at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, discuss why California wildfires are expected to expand and intensify with climate change.
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August 19, 2019
The changes could affect health, agriculture and ecosystems, the study suggests.
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May 01, 2019
In an unusual new study, scientists say they have detected a growing fingerprint of human-driven global warming on global drought conditions starting as far back as 1900.
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April 30, 2019
A new book, the second in a series of primers with the Earth Institute imprint, provides an interdisciplinary overview drought, bringing together many fields including climate science, hydrology and ecology.
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December 13, 2018
The current megadrought in the American West may be one of the most severe in the past 1200 years—and climate change is partially to blame.
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September 27, 2018
An interview with Ed Cook, one of the founding directors of the Tree-Ring Laboratory at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.
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June 08, 2017
Access to adequate fresh water supplies is a critically important societal challenge posed by climate change. With rising heat and shifting rainfall patterns, and reduced water storage resilience, fresh water supplies are already diminishing in the western United States, Mexico, the Middle East, and Mediterranean. Water shortages have been implicated in recent international conflict, and a recent Department of Defense study underscores the geopolitical importance of this problem.
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February 14, 2017
Aaron Putnam sits atop a boulder high in the Sierras of central California, banging away with hammer and chisel to chip out a sample of ice age history. Each hunk of rock is a piece of a vast puzzle: How did our climate system behave the last time it warmed up like it’s doing today?
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October 05, 2016
As the American Southwest grows hotter, the risk of severe, long-lasting megadroughts rises, passing 90 percent likelihood by the end of the century if greenhouse gas emissions continue at their current pace, a new study says. If we aggressively reduce greenhouse gas emissions, however, we can cut that risk substantially, the authors write.
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January 22, 2016
The Columbia Center for Climate & Life at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory has announced its 2016 Fellows. Michael Puma is focusing on food security and climate shocks, and Park Williams is exploring the influence of climate change on droughts and wildfires.
Videos
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Richard Seager Sees Hand of Climate Change in Drought | Richard Seager Sees Hand of Climate Change in Drought |
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The Impact of Human-caused Warming on Drought and Fire in the Western United States |
