Lamont Doherty
I just returned from a visit to the Lamont-Doherty Earth Science Center, which is one of the most important institutions that studies climate change. Deep sea cores, ice borings, tree-rings--they work on almost everything with a strong multidisciplinary emphasis. Every Friday, they have a colloquium, which has run continually every academic year since the 1950s, but I suspect I am one of the few archaeologists ever to speak to it. About 150 people came--faculty, researchers, and students. I spoke about the Medieval Warm Period and drought, mainly stressing the opportunities for collaboration with archaeologists that lie ahead. It went down well, I think, but the main benefit for me was a chance to interact with a series of really heavy duty researchers, each world authorities on such topics as deep sea cores and El Ninos. By the end of the day, I was exhausted, but I had learned a tremendous amount. I was also very flattered by the kind words they said about my climate change books.
Tomorrow is publication day for The Great Warming, finally after months of editing, revision, copy edits, and proofs. In a way it's an anticlimax, for I basically closed the text nearly a year ago. But the memories of the research come cascading back as I talk about the warm centuries in lectures--visiting the University of Arizona tree-ring laboratory, the brilliant white light of the Far North, the moiae, the great ancestral statues of Easter Island gazing out at the endless ocean. Every book has its cherished memories, which is what makes them worth writing. And one meets so many nice, interesting people along the way. Now I am bracing myself--to use a ghastly media expression--for the usual onslaught of nitpickers and people who delight in finding errors on page 86, line 4... . But the reviews have been good so far.
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