Vol.24, No. 03	Sept. 18, 1998

Construction Is Underway on Environmentally Sensitive Facility that Will House Climate Prediction Center

By Hannah Fairfield

At the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, NY, construction is underway on a new, environmentally sensitive facility to house Columbia's center for climate prediction.

It is the first new construction on the University's earth sciences campus since 1975. The one-story building for the International Research Institute for Climate Prediction (IRI) will be nestled among the trees atop the Palisades Cliffs, which rise 300 feet above the Hudson River. The building, though spacious with 27,000 square feet, will be nearly invisible from the east side of the Hudson.

"We wanted to have an environmentally sensitive building," said Peter Eisenberger, vice provost of the Columbia Earth Institute and director of Lamont. "It is a physical realization of the scientific progress made in our understanding of climate."

The building will house researchers who study weather phenomena and their effects on the society and the economy of regions that are vulnerable to certain weather patterns. Researchers at the IRI have been studying El Ni–o, the warming of Pacific equatorial waters that affects climate all over the world, and La Ni–a, a cooling phenomenon.

The theory behind the design was "to have the building interact with the weather," said Charles Blomberg of Rafael Vi–oly Architects, who was the project manager. He designed a clerestory window to run the length of the 600-foot-long roof to provide natural light and ventilation.

At its scheduled completion in August 1999, the $10 million building will be ready to house 80 to 85 students, researchers and administrators. It will also include conference rooms, computer laboratories and a 200-seat auditorium, a much-needed addition to the Lamont campus. Construction workers broke ground on the project on July 22.

IRI's scientists focus their efforts not only on improving climate models and forecasts, but also on making the information accessible to the people who need it most. The IRI's mission is to disseminate climate predictions to policymakers in areas around the globe that are greatly affected by fluctuating weather phenomena.

"The new building will allow us to have people from all over the world come together to learn tools and software that will help them make wise policy decisions," said Yves Tourre, the director of IRI's training program. "In this way, we send IRI antennas all over the world."

The Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory will be the headquarters for the IRI, which was established in 1997 as a joint venture among Columbia, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the UC-San Diego, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Antonio Divino Moura, director of IRI, said, "As a member of this interdisciplinary consortium, IRI will provide extraordinary opportunity for intellectual cross-fertilization within Columbia as well as internationally."