Robin Bell is a geophysicist at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory whose research adds to our understanding of how ice at the poles of our planet works — how ice sheets flow, melt, grow.

“While global trade can serve to buffer shortages in supply in the short term, it also exposes countries to the consequences of production shocks elsewhere in the world," said Alison Heslin, a postdoc at Columbia's Earth Institute.

Róisín Commane, from Columbia University, who carried out the New York air monitoring work said, "This is the cleanest I have ever seen it. It's is less than half of what we normally see in March."

A fierce hurricane and a deadly pandemic are very different disasters, but there are common elements that can guide our response to the current crisis, writes Columbia atmospheric scientist Adam Sobel.

Pioneering research by Columbia oceanographer Sonya Dyhrman on microbes and microbial interactions is examining just how vulnerable the global food chain may be to climate change.

“This is like water coming out of a firehose,” says Columbia University’s William Ryan, a marine geologist at Columbia University who was part of early work identifying the Mediterranean salt deposits.

The curbing of travel as a result of the coronavirus may offer a valuable lesson the world can use to continue to reduce carbon emissions in the future, Robin Bell, a research professor at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.