Photo Essay: A Day in the Life of the Hudson River

by |October 23, 2014
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Using the day’s high tide as a reference, the students measure how much farther inland the river will come by 2100 under several scenarios for future carbon dioxide emissions and rising sea level.

Once a year, Piermont Pier becomes a field station, and local students, a team of environmental investigators. On Tuesday, scientists at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory led students through a series of field experiments designed to teach them more about the Hudson River. The students took water chemistry measurements and compared them to the Hudson’s tidal cycles. They cored sediments from the river bottom and pictured their stretch of the Hudson covered in glaciers. They mapped out how high the river may rise under several CO2-emissions scenarios.

Their investigations led to many questions by the end of the day.

“How can we slow down sea level rise?”
“Can we see extinction events in sediment cores?”
“Does plankton abundance vary with water temperature?”

Now in its 12th year, the event, called “A Day in the Life of the Hudson River,” was organized by the New York’s State Department of Environmental Conservation. All photos by Kim Martineau unless otherwise credited.

 

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