The latest earth, climate, and environmental science news from across Columbia.
Geoffrey Heal studied physics and economics as an undergraduate, but has always cared deeply about the environment. “I’ve been interested in nature all my life,” he says. “As a kid I was buying binoculars and going bird watching and buying a little camera and taking pictures of birds and things like that.”
Lee C. Bollinger announces a new set of Columbia University Sustainability Principles that will serve as the cornerstone of an ongoing University-wide initiative that must involve our entire community.
Kartik Chandran, associate professor of earth and environmental engineering, is an authority on environmentally sustainable wastewater treatment and sanitation. He has been collaborating with research groups in Brazil focused on energy-efficient wastewater treatment. One goal is for an existing sewage treatment plant to discharge better water quality into Guanabara Bay, where sailing events for the 2016 Olympic Games will be held, while also emitting smaller amounts of greenhouse gases.
A portable solar array, which has 72 panels and measures 20 feet by 60 feet when fully deployed on a modified landscaping trailer cranked out enough juice to feed 150 people at a solar-powered turkey dinner after Hurricane Sandy.
Atmospheric scientist Adam Sobel is author of the new book Storm Surge: Hurricane Sandy, Our Changing Climate and Extreme Weather of the Past and Future. A professor at Columbia University’s Engineering School and Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Sobel is an expert in extreme weather and its relation to climate.
The U.S. government’s latest official report on climate change, released this week, says northeastern states are already seeing dangerous effects of warming climate, including the nation’s largest increase in extreme downpours, sea-level rise above the global average, and crop-unfriendly weather.
for Astrobiology Magazine Wind and dust conditions in Sub-Saharan Africa can help predict a meningitis epidemic. Determining the role of climate in the spread of certain diseases can assist health officials in “forecasting” epidemics.