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REPORTS FROM THE FIELD 12/23/03
Researchers from the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, in conjunction with
the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, are working to deploy
50 land and 10 ocean seismographs over the next month to collect seismic
data about the Calabrian Arc, which extends down the Italian Peninsula through
Calabria, and across Sicily toward Tunisia. Calabria, the toe of the Italian
Peninsula, is part of the most active seismic belt in Italy and has a high
earthquake hazard. The Messina earthquake of 1908 killed over 100,000 people.
12/23/03
New research from NASA and Columbia University scientists suggests emissions
of black soot alter the way sunlight reflects off snow. According to a computer
simulation, black soot may be responsible for 25 percent of observed global
warming over the past century. Researchers say the ice fields on Africa's
highest mountain, Mt. Kilimanjaro, shown at right in a Landsat satellite
image from February 2000, shrank by 80 percent in the past century.
12/18/03
Scientists at the University of California, Riverside and Columbia University
have found evidence of the release of an enormous quantity of methane gas
as ice sheets melted at the end of a global ice age about 600 million years
ago, possibly altering the ocean's chemistry, influencing oxygen levels in
the ocean and atmosphere, and enhancing climate warming because methane is
a powerful greenhouse gas. The study was published in today's issue of the
journal Nature.
12/08/03
Presentation topics include earthquakes, carbon sequestration, gender diversity
in geosciences, and climate modeling. For a full list of Columbia University
scientists associated with the Earth Institute who are presenting and their
topics,
click here. They include
researchers from the Center for International Earth Science Information Network,
the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, the NASA Goddard Institute for Space
Studies (GISS), and the International Research Institute for Climate Prediction
(IRI).
12/03/03
There has been considerable debate surrounding the reasons why instruments
crafted in the late 17th and early 18th centuries are tonally superior to
modern instruments. Theories range from the skill of the craftsman to secret
techniques such as a special varnish, the drying of the wood, the storage
time, or even the use of old wood from historic structures. Lloyd Burckle
of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, and Henri Grissino-Mayer
of the Laboratory of Tree Ring Science, University of Tennessee, have proposed
an alternate hypothesis -- climate. Their research was published in the journal
Dendrochronologia.
11/19/03
It took from the beginning of time until 1950 to put the first 2.5 billion
people on the planet. Yet in the next half-century, an increase that exceeds
the total population of the world in 1950 will occur.
11/18/03
At an Earth Institute workshop on Sustainable Fisheries at Columbia University
last week, President Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson of Iceland constructed
an inspiring case study of his country's success. Fishing is sometimes seen
as a backwards, regional type of industry, he noted, but in Iceland it is
the foundation of what has become an economy with one of the highest per
capita incomes and life expectancies in the world.
11/18/03
Dr. Shahid Naeem, an expert in biodiversity research, has joined the Center
for Environmental Research and Conservation, and the Ecology, Evolution and
Environmental Biology department.
11/18/03
Dr. Steve Zebiak has been named Director General of the International Research
Institute for Climate Prediction (IRI), it was announced last week. Dr. Zebiak
has been serving as Interim Director of the IRI for the past two years. He
continues to serve as director of climate modeling and predictions research.
11/17/03
With more than 300 participants, including former Dominican Republic President
Leonel Fernández (above, left), and Dr. Joaquin Vial from the Center
on Globalization and Sustainable Development (above, right), the conference's
presentations and discussions sparked fruitful and provocative interchange
about development challenges both in the Dominican Republic and in the Dominican
community overseas.
11/17/03
Public policy for environmental conservation can be constructed explicitly
to alleviate poverty, according to presenters from the CUBES-Capetown Urban
Biosphere Group at the recent conference Urban Biosphere and Society: Partnership
of Cities.
11/14/03
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and Columbia
University in Palisades, N.Y., have established a cooperative institute to
study climate applications and research. NOAA is an agency of the U.S. Department
of Commerce.
11/14/03
The Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN)
at Columbia University’s Earth Institute has received a five-year,
$20 million contract from the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration
(NASA) to operate the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC)
in support of the application of remote sensing data in research and decision-making.
11/11/03
Two Columbia University researchers, in collaboration with scientists in
Russia and the U.S., recently resolved a decades-old debate when they discovered
that the boundary between the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates
passes through Eastern Siberia. The study carried out by Mikhail Kogan and
Christopher Scholz at Columbia's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Grigory
Steblov and Dmitry Frolov of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Robert King
at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Roland Bürgmann of
the University of California, Berkeley appeared in a recent issue of
Geophysical
Research Letters.
11/10/03
Most people who die from hunger were farmers out of necessity -- born in
rural areas, with no other resources with which to earn a living. When a
farm family’s production falls short of their own food needs, they
fall into a downward spiral of malnutrition, ill-health, and even lower production.
10/31/03
A recent study conducted by oceanographers Taro Takahashi and Stewart Sutherland
from Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO)
and Richard Feely and Cathy Cosca from the NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental
Laboratory (PMEL) indicates the partial pressure of CO2 (pCO2) measured in
surface waters dramatically changed after the Pacific Decadal Oscillation
(PDO) phase shift in the Pacific Ocean that occurred around 1990.
10/30/03
A recent study conducted by oceanographers Taro Takahashi and Stewart Sutherland
from Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO)
and Richard Feely and Cathy Cosca from the NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental
Laboratory (PMEL) indicates the partial pressure of CO2 (pCO2) measured in
surface waters dramatically changed after the Pacific Decadal Oscillation
(PDO) phase shift in the Pacific Ocean that occurred around 1990.
10/24/03
Research by scientists at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia
University shows that Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) polarimetry is a more
superior technology for rapidly identifying disaster zones than the currently
used optical remote sensing technologies, such as Landsat and SPOT. Their
findings are published in the Journal of Geophysical Research, and coincide
with an opportunity to outfit satellites scheduled for deployment in 2004
with SAR polarimetry instruments.
10/24/03
Scientists at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
have found that currents connecting the Indian and Pacific Oceans are colder
and deeper than originally believed. This discovery may one day help climate
modelers predict the intensity of the Asian monsoon or El Niño with
greater accuracy and with more lead-time than is currently possible.
Watch animation of Indonesian throughflow (ITF)
10/20/03
Although seasonal climate predictions will always be probabilistic and therefore
have inherent uncertainty, they can be used effectively to save dollars and
lives. That was the major finding from a two-day policy forum hosted on April
23-24, 2003 by the American Meteorological Society (AMS), in collaboration
with the Earth Institute at Columbia University.
10/16/03
Dr. Kenneth Hunkins, Special Research Scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth
Observatory, was awarded the American Polar Society Medallion for his lifelong
research in the Arctic region. Dr. Hunkins was on the first IGY Arctic floating "Station
Alpha" (where he is pictured at right, circa 1957) when celestial navigation
(instead of satellites and Global Positioning System) was used to tell if
the floating ice station had drifted out of range for supply drops. The Alpha
station was the first to discover the Alpha Rise, a submarine ridge named
for the ice camp, using the Precision Depth Recorder invented by Maurice
Ewing, the founder of Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.
10/09/03
A strong link has been confirmed between sea surface temperatures and precipitation
in Africa’s semi-arid Sahel, according to a new study published in
Science on October 9th. The study was co-authored by Alessandra Giannini,
a climate expert with the International Research Institute for Climate Prediction
(IRI), a unit of the Earth Institute at Columbia University.
10/05/03
Pedro Sanchez, director of tropical agriculture at the Earth Institute and
2002 World Food Prize recipient, has been named a MacArthur Fellow for 2004.
As the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
celebrates its 25th year of grantmaking, Sanchez is one of 24 people to receive
this honor, also known as a “Genius Award.” He will receive $500,000
over the next five years to be used in an area of his choosing. Since its
inception in 1981, 659 people, ranging in age from 18 to 82, have received
the award.
10/01/03
The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Alliance of the Joint
Oceanographic Institutions, Inc., Texas A&M University, and Lamont-Doherty
Earth Observatory of Columbia University announced today that they have signed
a contract to operate a scientific drillship as part of the Integrated Ocean
Drilling Program (IODP). The contract has an estimated cost of $626 million
over ten years.
09/30/03
The Earth Institute at Columbia University was honored to host Prime Minister
Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee of India and President John Agyekum Kufuor of Ghana
as part of Columbia University's World Leaders Forum last week. The Earth
Institute has "thriving advisory programs" in both India and Ghana, in the
words of Earth Institute Director Jeffrey Sachs, who also noted that these
were "two very impressive democratic leaders."
09/30/03
With scant fossil evidence supporting a prehistoric presence, scientists
could not say for sure where Borneo’s elephants came from. Did they
descend from ancient prototypes of the Pleistocene era or from modern relatives
introduced just 300–500 years ago? That question, as Fernando et al.
report in an article appearing in the inaugural issue of PLoS Biology (and
currently available online at
http://biology.plosjournals.org),
is no longer subject to debate.
09/23/03
By 2050, it will take between 15 and 20 Terawatts (TW) of electric power
to supply the North American economy. A little under 7 TW is currently used,
with most of that consumed in the United States. The “Smart Electric
Grid of the Future” must be able to efficiently and securely deliver
this two- to three-fold-increase in power to all corners of the continent,
in addition to being invulnerable to security breaches, attacks, natural
disasters, and mechanical failures. The country can ill afford more blackouts
like August 14, 2003.
08/27/03
How do you study a subterranean lake that has remained isolated from the
surface of the Earth for more than 35 million years, without contaminating
the waters in the course of your study? This is the challenge that will be
discussed in a lecture by Robin Bell of the Earth Institute at Columbia University
on Tuesday, September 16.
08/11/03
Hazards to northwestern North America could be greater than previously
thought
Researchers have found an important new application for seismic reflection
data, commonly used to image geological structures and explore for oil and
gas. Recently published in the journal Nature, new use of reflection data
may prove crucial to understanding the potential for mega earthquakes.
08/06/03
Tourism joins infrastructure, agriculture, and health as project focus
Perhaps the most surprising and inspiring development during a recent Earth
Institute meeting with the President of Ghana and several of his ministers
was the enthusiasm of the new Minister of Finance and Economic Planning for
developing tourism as well as trade as engines of growth for the nation.
07/18/03
Columbia researchers advance plan to mitigate arsenic crisis
--UPDATED 9/25/2003
A solution to arsenic-poisoned drinking water in Bangladesh has come two
steps closer with two new research papers by Lex van Geen, Doherty Senior
Researcher at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, part of the Earth Institute
at Columbia University, and a team of researchers from Columbia.
07/07/03
Plans to coordinate anti-hunger group with Millennium Development
Goals
Pedro Sanchez, Director of Tropical Agriculture at the Earth Institute at
Columbia University, has been named honorary chairman of the Monterrey Bridge
Coalition, a group that is working to reduce world hunger in a way that encourages
sustainable development.
07/01/03
Will funding shortage prevent others from following?
Josh Ruxin of Columbia University was pleased to see that the opening meeting
of the HIV/AIDS task force in Kigali, Rwanda was attended by Rwanda's President,
Prime Minister, head of the National AIDS Program, Minister of Health, and
the government's entire cabinet. After all, Rwanda is a country that is meeting
its AIDS crisis head-on.
07/01/03
Monkeys and Toads Define Priority Areas for Conservation on a Fine
Geographic Scale
Researchers from the Center for Environmental Research and Conservation
(CERC) are making finer geographic distinctions within global "hotspots" --
habitats with high concentrations of unique species vulnerable to human activity
-- by examining how evolutionary relationships within distantly-related organisms
are distributed throughout a shared habitat.
06/25/03
Columbia University researcher presents "A Guide to CO2 Sequestration"
Recent congressional support to research and develop zero-emissions plants
and hydrogen fueled vehicles is a necessary long-term solution toward reducing
harmful greenhouse gases; however, there are immediate opportunities to render
fossil fuels—currently accounting for 85% of all commercial energy—environmentally
acceptable.
06/24/03
Network of contacts could be useful to other Earth Institute Projects
The Columbia University/UNESCO Joint Program on Biosphere and Society (CUBES)
has initiated a project in Cape Town, S. Africa, to study how a city with
high rates of urban problems—poverty, HIV and tuberculosis, population
growth in informal settlements lacking basic services—can address urban
issues while protecting endangered, globally significant biodiversity and
critical ecosystems within the Cape Floral Region, the smallest and most
diverse of the world’s six floral kingdoms.
06/19/03
A Science "Review" by W.S. Broecker, the Newberry Professor of Earth & Environmental
Sciences, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.
06/07/03
Earth Institute researcher wants to hear more voices in the sustainability
debate
Dana R. Fisher believes that efforts to put the Earth on a path toward sustainable
development require including the voices of groups currently left out of
international governance. On June 5, Dr. Fisher hosted a round table discussion
called Engaging the Disenfranchised in International Policy-making to explore
this problem.
06/04/03
On May 10, 2003, a volcanic eruption occurred on Anatahan, an uninhabited
island just 75 nautical miles north of Saipan in the northwestern Pacific
Ocean. At the time of the eruption, researchers studying the sinking (or
subduction) of ocean seafloor into the earth's mantle for the MARGINS Program,
headquartered at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory,
were deploying seismographic equipment in the area.
05/27/03
Physical sciences to support economics in novel approach to development
planning
Over the next three years, the Earth Institute at
Columbia University will use a novel combination of science and economics
to try and set the Indian state of Gujarat on a new path of growth. On May
9, the Institute’s
Center on Globalization and Sustainable Development (CGSD) signed a Memorandum
of Understanding with the government of Gujarat to launch a multidisciplinary
research project aimed at advancing the Gujarat economy.
05/21/03
How will global public policy for sustainable development evolve? What forces
should shape it? These will be some of the issues discussed at Revisiting
Global Policies for Sustainable Development, a conference in Paris next week
sponsored by the Alliance Program, a French political science academy, with
participation from Columbia’s Earth Institute and the School of International
and Public Affairs. Earth Institute Director Jeffrey Sachs will deliver the
keynote speech to the conference on May 26.
05/16/03
NASA-funded scientists using an atmospheric computer model proved for the
first time that dust from the Takla-Makan desert of China traveled more than
12,400 miles (20,000 kilometers) over two weeks time and landed atop the
French Alps. Chinese dust plumes have been known to reach North America and
even Greenland, but have never been reported before in Europe.
05/14/03
A team of researchers, led by Columbia University and NASA scientists, found
airborne, microscopic, black-carbon (soot) particles are even more plentiful
around the world, and contribute more to climate change, than was previously
assumed by the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC).
05/13/03
The results of an intensive research trip to Accra, Ghana by Columbia University
urban planning students will inform a diverse and impressive community of
researchers who are heading to Accra in June. Both trips, sponsored by The
Earth Institute at Columbia University, are part of the new 21st Century
Cities project.
05/06/03
Scientists from the Center for Environmental Research and Conservation (CERC),
a unit of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, have developed non-invasive
collection, extraction, and amplification protocols providing high quality
DNA that will enable a broad application of genetic analysis, particularly
with regard to endangered, elusive, or aggressive species.
05/02/03
Dr. Won-Young Kim, a seismologist with the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
at Columbia University, conducted research to determine the potential hazard
of future earthquakes to the Wabash Valley Seismic Zone in Indiana, which
in 2002 suffered a 5.0 magnitude earthquake.
04/30/03
(APRIL 28, 2003, NEW YORK) As The Global Fund monies to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis
and Malaria are disbursed in Geneva this month, seven developing countries
receiving significant funding will have utilized the assistance of a fledgling
Columbia University program to develop their successful proposals.
04/30/03
Why don’t poverty experts know precisely where the world’s poor
live? How would such knowledge help them diagnose the causes of poverty more
accurately and formulate responses more effectively? The renowned global
mapping experts of the Earth Institute at Columbia University’s Center
for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN) recently convened
a workshop to answer this and other questions about mapping poverty around
the world.
04/17/03
The Earth Institute welcomes its External Advisory Board to campus this
month. An impressive range of global view thinkers and leaders, the Board
includes members, such as philanthropist George Soros, Professor Edward O.
Wilson, and musician/activist Bono. Representatives of the group will convene
for in-depth discussions on major initiatives within The Earth Institute.
04/16/03
Unique Collaboration of Tourism Industry Leaders and Conservation
Organizations Come Together to Devise Caribbean Conservation Action
Plan
WASHINGTON, D.C/DOMINICAN REPUBLIC (April 24, 2003)
In a first
of its kind 'chief executives meeting,' key decision-makers influencing Caribbean
tourism development will come together to develop a sustainable tourism action
plan.
04/10/03 - Reports From the Field
Dr. Gerd Krahmann, of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, is aboard the
Research Vessel Laurence M. Gould, traveling infamously rough waters to Antarctic's
Weddell Sea. Krahmann is leading a group of five scientists and technicians
from Lamont on an expedition to replace moored instruments deployed on the
northern rim of the Weddell Sea.
03/27/03
The Center for Environmental Conservation and Research (CERC), headquartered
at the Earth Institute of Columbia University, and The Overbrook Foundation,
New York, have announced the selection of the first six Overbrook Fellows,
part of a new five year program to build local capacity for addressing problems
of biodiversity conservation within Latin American countries with high or
unique biodiversity.
03/25/03
During its recent visit to Uganda, an Earth Institute delegation launched
a partnership with government, academic and other stakeholders in the city
of Kampala, Uganda to study the city and its hinterland.
03/20/03
Ends Debate Over Whether Sun Can Play a Role in Climate
Change
New data indicate that the sun may contribute to global climate change,
according to a new study by Richard Willson, a Columbia-affiliated researcher.
03/14/03
The federal government is struggling to shape what could become one of
the most important pieces of science policy of the 21st century - its strategy
for understanding and addressing global climate change.
03/05/03
Thrilled with President Bush’s statement, Columbia University Scientist
Dr. Klaus Lackner calls for an even larger vision. Zero-emissions energy
plants would eliminate the need for flue stacks, like the one pictured at
right.
03/04/03 - Reports From the Field
Dr. Arnold L. Gordon, of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, is aboard
the Research Vessel Nathaniel B. Palmer in Antarctic’s northwestern
Ross Sea. Gordon is the principal investigator leading a study to build on
scientific understanding of global climate and the crucial, but not well
understood role played by a frontal zone known as the Antarctic Slope Front
(ASF) occurring near the upper continental slope of much of Antarctic’s
perimeter. This research, part of a multi-expedition project called AnSlope,
seeks to unravel the dynamics of cold water transport into the intermediate
and deep layers of the deep ocean.
02/18/03
Thanks to a visit by Jeffrey Sachs in January 2003, a previously little-known
climate research program run by Lareef Zubair of the Earth Institute's International
Research Institute for Climate Prediction (IRI) now has the interest of Sri
Lanka's highest ranking government officials.
01/24/03
First site in 21st Century Cities initiative
In spring, 2003, Earth, social, and life scientists from the Earth Institute
at Columbia University will be putting their mission to work—mobilizing
the sciences to build a sustainable future—in the west African city
of Accra, Ghana. Accra is the first focus of 21st Century Cities, a new Earth
Institute initiative that focuses on urban growth challenges.
01/21/03
New data shed light on Lake Vostok
The cavity which became Lake Vostok, a body of water located beneath more
than 4 km of ice in the middle of East Antarctica, was formed by tectonic
processes in the earth's crust millions of years ago, Columbia University's
Michael Studinger and colleagues reveal in an article published on January
21st in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters.
01/17/03
10 Major Episodes of Extraterrestrial Impacts Found to Correlate with 9 Major Episodes of Volcanism
Supporting the theory that catastrophic events significantly influence
major Earth processes, researchers have determined that comet and meteorite
impacts on Earth occurring over the last 4 billion years have directly correlated
with the activity of strong and normal mantle plumes - heated mantle rock
causing volcanic eruptions (e.g. Hawaii, Iceland).
01/06/03
Columbia's President Bollinger and Earth Institute Director and CMH Chair Jeffrey Sachs to speak at the January 9 launch in New Delhi, India
Based on a report issued in 2001 by the World Health Organization's (WHO)
Commission on Macroeconomics and Health (chaired by economist Jeffrey Sachs),
the government of India is officially forming a special Indian Commission
on Macroeconomics and Health to target health sector priorities in order
to spur economic development.