Climate Change

Following the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris climate accord, the private sector must step up its efforts in the fight against global warming, write professors Michael Vandenbergh and Jonathan Gilligan. Read More

A prehistoric community in the Mississippi Delta may have abandoned a large ceremonial site after the bayou it sits on began to dry up. Read More

Before the Industrial Age, the Mississippi Delta grew at a rate of two to three square miles per year, suggesting that, even with current reclamation efforts, it is unlikely that it will be possible to offset the current rate of loss--15 to 20 square miles per year Read More

Twice as many adults in Latin America and the Caribbean--more than 80 percent--believe unchecked climate change poses a serious risk to their countries. Only 40 percent of Americans feel the same way. Read More

A number of Vanderbilt professors can provide interviews about rethinking how and why we rebuild after disasters, designing policies to keep Americans safe and predicting extreme weather impacts. Read More

A study of stalagmite records from the White Moon Cave in the Santa Cruz Mountains finds the California coast was lashed by exceptionally wet and stormy weather for 150 years...8,200 years ago. Read More

Bayesian modeling can include hundreds of data points and present a range of potential events and options for dealing with them. Read More

Researchers are studying how commerce and flood control on inland waterways and the residents along them must change. Read More

Analysis suggests that climate change had a significant impact on megafauna diets and was a primary factor in their extinction. Read More

An island off the nation's coast demonstrates land use mismanagement can be far more damaging than rising sea levels. Read More

A new study has compared the diet of a variety of Australian megafaunal herbivores from the period when they were widespread (350,000 to 570,000 years ago) to a period when they were in decline (30,000 to 40,000 years ago) by studying their fossil teeth. The analysis suggests that climate change had a significant impact on their diets and may well have been a primary factor in their extinction. Read More

Paleoclimatic cave study in California is designed to identify the factors that made megadroughts commonplace in the western U.S. from 5,000 to 8,000 years ago. Read More

A pair of Vanderbilt doctoral students has assembled a multi-disciplinary team of graduate students from around the country to conduct a multi-faceted study of how people are affected by and responding to drought conditions in the United States. Read More

Scientists from Vanderbilt and George Washington universities have worked out a way to make electric vehicles that not only are carbon neutral but carbon negative. Read More

Vanderbilt University is part of a new public-private partnership that has been awarded up to $40 million from the U.S. Department of Energy to explore, develop and demonstrate advanced nuclear reactor technologies to help America meet its goals for carbon emission reduction. Read More

Watch video of The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Vanderbilt’s winter class – “Climate Change Literature: A New Fictional Genre about a Real Problem” on Thursday, January 21. Read More

Application of new micro-analytical techniques have transformed rocks and gravel buried in a special type of soil into a rich source of data about past climates that can help scientists understand how the climate will change in the future. Read More

Jessica Oster is a member of a small group of earth scientists pioneering the use of mineral cave deposits in stalagmites, collectively known as speleothems, as proxies for the prehistoric climate. Read More

VIDEO» For Vanderbilt Assistant Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences Jessica Oster, getting data means getting dirty. Oster and her team are collecting mineral deposits deep inside caves to find clues to climate change. Read More

Two Vanderbilt experts can comment on the pope's recent statement about the environment. Read More