Stacy Morford, Author at State of the Planet

Radar Reveals Meltwater’s Year-Round Life Under Greenland Ice

An improved technique developed by a graduate student at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and her colleagues is making it possible to use airborne ice-penetrating radar to reveal meltwater’s life under the ice throughout the year.

by |January 5, 2017

Exploring Our Changing Earth, in Real Time

Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory scientists are loading drones with high-tech instruments and using satellites and undersea cables that are interacting with sensors in some of the most remote locations on Earth to gather data in real time and uncover the secrets of our planet.

by |January 4, 2017

Creating Earthquake Heat Maps: Temperature Spikes Leave Clues in the Rock

When a fault slips, the temperature can spike by hundreds of degrees, high enough to alter organic compounds in the rocks and leave a signature. Lamont scientists have developed methods to use those organic signatures to reconstruct past earthquakes and better understand what controls them.

by |December 16, 2016

Learning from Slow-Slip Earthquakes

Off the coast of New Zealand, there is an area where earthquakes can happen in slow-motion as two tectonic plates grind past one another. These slow-slip events create an ideal lab for studying fault behavior along the shallow portion of subduction zones.

by |December 15, 2016
Greenland's ice can "darken" in ways we can see and ways we can't. Photo: Marco Tedesco

State of the Arctic: Longer Melting Seasons, Thinning Sea Ice

The Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet, and scientists are seeing the effects across ice and ecosystems. Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory’s Marco Tedesco describes the changes underway.

by |December 13, 2016

IEDA: Revolutionizing Big Data

The Interdisciplinary Earth Data Alliance is fueling groundbreaking multi-disciplinary discoveries worldwide. “This is a new era of data mining,” says IEDA Director Kerstin Lehnert, a geochemist at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.

by |December 13, 2016

Spy Satellites Reveal the Himalayas’ Changing Glaciers – in 3D

Declassified spy satellite images are beginning to provide the first consistent look at how glaciers across the Himalayas are changing and what future water supplies might look like for millions of people.

by |December 12, 2016

Live from San Francisco: Science from Lamont

Earth scientists from around the world will be in San Francisco next week to share their latest discoveries at the American Geophysical Union’s fall meeting. You can watch several of their presentations live online through AGU On-Demand, including seven involving scientists from Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.

by |December 7, 2016
When frozen land thaws, the loss of ice in the soil creates landscapes that can be easily eroded. “This study suggests that similar processes occurred during past warming events with important implications for the land-to-ocean permafrost carbon fluxes,” says lead author Tommaso Tesi. Illustration: Tesi, et al. 2016

When Permafrost Melts, What Happens to All That Stored Carbon?

A new study documents evidence of a massive release of carbon from Siberian permafrost as temperatures rose at the end of the last ice age.

by |December 2, 2016
The first of six ALAMO floats parachutes into the Ross Sea off Antarctica to begin profiling the water. Their mission is to check for areas where warmer than normal water could put the Ross Ice Shelf at risk. Photo: Tej Dhakal/Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory

Antarctica Has a New Explorer in the Water Near a Key Ice Shelf

The first of six ALAMO floats parachuted into the Ross Sea off Antarctica to begin profiling the water in a check for areas where warmer than normal water could put the Ross Ice Shelf at risk.

by |December 2, 2016