糖心视频

The seas are rising, as they have during past periods of warming in earth鈥檚 history. Estimates of how high they will go in the next few thousand years range from five meters, putting greater Miami underwater, to 40 meters, wiping most of Florida off the map. 鈥淭he range of estimates is huge to the point of meaninglessness,鈥� says Maureen 鈥淢o鈥� Raymo, a climate scientist at Columbia University鈥檚 Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.

On a desolate coast in Australia, Raymo aims to close the gap. By analyzing ancient fossils, sand dunes and coral reefs, she wants to pinpoint where the seas stood 3 million years ago, when warming temperatures and collapsing ice sheets pushed the seas much higher than today. This information could help scientists narrow their estimates for how ice sheets today will respond to hotter temperatures and rising greenhouse gas levels, she says.

Raymo joined Lamont this summer from Boston University and now oversees the Lamont-Doherty Core Repository, the world鈥檚 largest collection of seafloor sediments. Captivated by Jacques Cousteau鈥檚 stories at sea, she knew from an early age she would become a scientist. Her father, a physics professor and science journalist, encouraged her by casting her in the starring role of her own comic book, 鈥淢aureen鈥檚 Adventures Under the Sea.鈥� In her new office, Raymo recently quoted her favorite line: 鈥淒eep beneath the ocean Maureen sees a terrifying sight at the port-hole!  But for the sake of science she must go out and investigate.鈥�

With a geology degree from Brown University, Raymo came to Lamont in the 1980s to investigate, and to earn her PhD. With advisor William Ruddiman, a climate scientist, she proposed the controversial 鈥渦plift weathering hypothesis鈥� that rising mountain ranges could cool earth鈥檚 climate. Over time, the exposed rock of new mountain ranges, such as the Himalayas, reacts with carbon dioxide in a chemical weathering process that removes carbon dioxide from the air to cool the planet globally, she says. At Lamont, she also wrote a book with her dad, 鈥淲ritten in Stone,鈥� about the geology of the Northeast that still sells hundreds of copies a year.

More recently, Raymo came up with another big idea to explain why ice ages came and went more frequently between 3 million and 1 million years ago鈥攁rriving every 41,000 years instead of every 100,000 years. After watching the documentary March of the Penguins, Raymo started to think about earth鈥檚 orbital cycles, and how shrinking ice cover in Antarctica coupled with cyclical changes in the direction of earth鈥檚 rotating axis, might alter the timing of ice ages. In a 2006 paper in Science, she proposed that the Antarctic ice sheet was far more dynamic in the past than generally accepted.

鈥淚 had all of these pictures of penguins and Antarctica in my head and woke up in the middle of the night with the idea,鈥� she says. 鈥淚 seem to have my best ideas when I鈥檓 not sitting at my desk.鈥�

Beyond science, her interests include travel and reading up on all things William Morris, the British writer, textile designer and socialist. Her last house was partly wallpapered with Morris鈥檚 botanical designs.

One of Raymo鈥檚 goals for the core lab is to add instruments that can more closely analyze the cores鈥� chemical composition. She also wants to broaden access to the collection by training more scientists to tap into its data.

鈥淲e have more cores, from more places on earth, than any other institution,鈥� she says. 鈥淭hey are a treasure trove for understanding how earth鈥檚 climate and life have evolved in the past.  Humans are currently conducting a giant, unplanned experiment by pumping climate-altering greenhouse gases into the air. The geologic record is the closest thing we have to a control experiment.鈥�