Kim Martineau, Author at State of the Planet

Kim Martineau, science writer for The Earth Institute, became a journalist to discover the world, explore the human condition and reveal the truth hiding in a string of facts. As a newspaper writer for the Times Union in Albany, NY, and The Hartford Courant in Connecticut, she wrote about crime and punishment, small town government, higher education and the environment. She was twice named a finalist for the Livingston Awards for Young Journalists for profiling a transgender student at Yale and a Nobel Prize-winning chemist accused of stealing the rights to his own invention. A story that she broke about an antique map dealer caught slicing maps out of ancient books at a Yale library received national attention. She lives in New York City with her husband and a rabbit possibly old enough to qualify for the book of Guinness World Records.

Recent Posts

A Milestone for Forecasting Earthquake Hazards

In a new study, researchers report that their physics-based model of California earthquake hazards replicated estimates from the state’s leading statistical model.

by |August 22, 2018

Researchers Develop an Artificial Intelligence to Analyze Birdsong in a Warming Arctic

A new algorithm quickly sifts through hours of field recordings to learn how climate change influences bird migration. The A.I. could help track other wildlife as well.

by |June 20, 2018

Machine Listening for Earthquakes

In a new study, researchers show that machine learning algorithms can pick out different types of earthquakes from three years of data at Geysers in California. The repeating patterns of earthquakes appear to match the seasonal rise and fall of water-injection flows into the hot rocks below.

by |May 23, 2018
argo ship ocean freshening

North Atlantic Is Getting Less Salty, But It’s Too Soon to Blame Climate Change

Researchers report a sharp drop in salinity in the North Atlantic Ocean over the last decade, providing the most detailed look yet at the region’s changing ocean conditions. A continued decline could impact fish stocks and the ocean’s ability to absorb CO2.

by |March 13, 2018
tree guard

So Much Depends on a Tree Guard

Adding protective barriers around street trees could reduce load on city sewers, study finds.

by |January 23, 2018
climate migrantion

Hotter Temperatures Will Accelerate Migration of Asylum-Seekers to Europe, Says Study

If carbon emissions hold steady, a new study in Science predicts that the European Union could face a massive influx by 2100.

by |December 21, 2017

As Climate Stirs Arctic Sea Ice Faster, Pollution Tags Along

A warming climate is not just melting the Arctic’s sea ice; it is stirring the remaining ice faster, increasing the odds that ice-rafted pollution will foul a neighboring country’s waters, says a new study.

by |June 27, 2017

Cleaning Up New York City’s Waters and Beyond: Q&A with Kartik Chandran

Kartik Chandran, an environmental engineer at Columbia, will discuss some of his urban wastewater treatment projects at a panel discussion Friday following the screening of a new film about Rio de Janeiro’s Guanabara Bay.

by |June 7, 2017

Reduced U.S. Air Pollution Will Boost Rainfall in Africa’s Sahel, Says Study

If U.S. sulfur dioxide emissions are cut to zero by 2100, as some researchers have projected they will be, rainfall over Africa’s Sahel region could increase up to 10 percent from 2000 levels, computer simulations suggest.

by |May 22, 2017

New Group Takes On Massive Computing Needs of Big Data

The sheer number of observations now streaming from land, sea, air and space has outpaced the ability of most computers to process it. The Data Science Institute’s newest working group —Frontiers in Computing Systems—will try to address some of the bottlenecks facing scientists working with these and other massive data sets.

by |July 25, 2016