Following are summaries of a few of the papers being presented at the AGU meeting by scientists affiliated with the Earth Institute at Columbia University.

Global Poverty

Mapping Poverty: The Geographical And Biophysical Correlates Of Hunger And Infant Mortality

It is difficult to design programs to reduce poverty unless you understand where and why that poverty occurs. De Sherbinin and colleagues present recent efforts to integrate global spatial dat

Ten percent of all bird species are likely to disappear by the year 2100, and another 15 percent could be on the brink of extinction, according to a new study by Stanford University biologists. This dramatic loss is expected to have a negative impact on forest ecosystems and agriculture worldwide and may even encourage the spread of human diseases, according to the study published in the Online Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) in December.

A researcher has discovered an effective way to remove a troubling new pollutant from our nation’s water sources.

Pratim Biswas, The Stifel and Quinette Jens Professor of Environmental Engineering Science and director of the Environmental Engineering Science Program at Washington University in St. Louis, has found a method for removing the toxin MTBE from water. MTBE (methyl tertiary butyl ether) has been detected at low levels in municipal water sources around the nation and in

The Pacific Northwest has seen its share of major environmental battles. Now a new historical study of the fur trade indicates that early Europeans and Americans in the region struggled with similar issues nearly two centuries ago as they sought to exploit and preserve the area’s natural resources.

In a pilot study examining the historical record for the National Park Service, a University of Washington researcher has found that the Hudson’s Bay Company, the dominant o

A team of University of Minnesota scientists has discovered how iron- and chromium-rich rocks can generate natural gas (methane) and related hydrocarbons when reacted with superheated fluids circulating deep beneath the floor of the Atlantic Ocean.

Because the process is completely nonbiological, the hydrocarbons could have been a source of “food” for some of the first organisms to inhabit the Earth. Also, methane is a potent greenhouse gas, and this process may have contributed t

Engineers constructing a new railroad across the vast, high-altitude Tibetan Plateau are using a surprisingly simple idea to fortify shifting frozen soils affected by climate warming, according to a University of Colorado at Boulder permafrost expert.

“The Qinghai-Xizang railroad is the most ambitious construction project in a permafrost region since the Trans-Alaska Pipeline,” said CU-Boulder and National Snow and Ice Data Center researcher Tingjun Zhang. Zhang is working closely

Coral reefs around the world could expand in size by up to a third in response to increased ocean warming and the greenhouse effect, according to Australian scientists.

“Our analysis suggests that ocean warming will foster considerably faster future rates of coral reef growth that will eventually exceed pre-industrial rates by as much as 35 per cent by 2100,” says Dr Ben McNeil, an oceanographer from the University of News South Wales. “Our finding stands in stark contrast to prev

Atmospheric scientists have developed simple, physics-based equations that address some of the limitations of current methods for representing cloud formation in global climate models – important because of increased aerosol pollution that gives clouds more cooling power and affects precipitation.

These researchers – led by the Georgia Institute of Technology — have also developed a new instrument for measuring the conditions and time needed for a particle to become a cloud drop

The novelty of the system lies in the possibility of having an on-site installation at the farm itself, thus avoiding the transport of the purines to other, off-site plants for their treatment.

ADE Biotec has undertaken the treatment of these residues in locations in Gipuzkoa, other areas of the Basque Country and a patented technology. In the case in hand, the purine treatment plant is installed on a pig farm at Egiluze in Renteria (Gipuzkoa).

Nowadays, the purine

Scientists at the University of York are to take part in research into a rare breed of sheep, which could yield clues for the development of a drug to treat a medical condition affecting one in 30,000 people worldwide.

The three-year study will be carried out by a collaborative team of researchers from the universities of Aberdeen, Liverpool and York, which has been awarded £413,000 by the UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

The team will

Issue 43 of RTD info delves into the latest advances in European seismology as scientists grapple to crack the hidden secrets of earthquakes in their bid to minimise the devastating impact of this deadly phenomenon.

“The furies of the Earth can be awesome,” begins a special 11-page report on earthquakes in the latest issue of RTD info. “What can science do in the face of such cataclysms unleashed from the very depths of the Earth? The first step is to know and understand the phenomen

The UK should use its presidency of the G8 and EU to move forward international action to analyse future risks due to climate change and develop and implement evidence-based adaptation strategies for coping with the immediate impacts of climate change, the British Ecological Society has urged. Giving evidence to the House of Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee on Wednesday 8 December 2004, Professor Alastair Fitter of York University and president of the British Ecological

A new study has revealed a mechanism that counters established thinking on how the rate at which tectonic plates separate along mid-ocean ridges controls processes such as heat transfer in geologic materials, energy circulation and even biological production.

The study also pioneered a new seismic technique – simultaneously shooting an array of 20 airguns to generate sound — for studying the Earth’s mantle, the layer beneath the 10- to 40-kilometer-deep crust on the seaflo

New research may improve long-term forecasting skills

The authors, left to right: Andrew Charlton, postdoctoral student; Matthew Wittman, graduate student and principal author; and Lorenzo Polvani, Professor of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics & Earth and Environmental Sciences and Director of the IGERT Joint Program in Applied Mathematics and Earth and Environmental Sciences.
by Jennifer Freeman

Three members of Columbia’s Department of Applied Physics and Appli

Scientists have found the first direct evidence linking large-scale coastal farming to massive blooms of marine algae that are potentially harmful to ocean life and fisheries.

Researchers from Stanford University’s School of Earth Sciences made the discovery by analyzing satellite images of Mexico’s Sea of Cortez, also known as the Gulf of California-a narrow, 700-mile-long stretch of the Pacific Ocean that separates the Mexican mainland from the Baja California Peninsu

They contributed to ice-age deep freeze

Labrador Sea ocean tides dislodged huge Arctic icebergs thousands of years ago, carrying gigantic ice-rafted debris across the ocean and contributing to the ice age’s deep freeze, say an international team of university researchers.

The study, published in the November issue of Nature, is the first to suggest that ocean tides contributed to enigmatic Heinrich events, a phenomenon where colossal discharges of icebergs periodicall