Every year, the Climate School honors Earth Day by sharing images that celebrate the beauty and magic of our planet as captured by the Columbia community. A few highlights from this year’s selection include the blue skies of the Atacama Desert, Chile; an erupting volcano in La Palma, Spain; a penguin studying a biologist in the Amundsen Sea; and coral tagging and replanting in Hawai’i.
Please enjoy our Columbia Beautiful Planet selections and visit our Earth Day website for more on this year’s theme, Our Power, Our Planet.
Volcanologists Janine Birnbaum and Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory’s Einat Lev during an installation of a thermal web camera to monitor the eruption of Cumbre Vieja volcano in La Palma, Spain in fall 2021. Credit: Pedro Hernández Pérez (INVOLCAN)Atacama Desert, Chile. Credit: Joey Parr, Columbia Climate SchoolCritically endangered juvenile red-shanked doucs (_Pygathrix nemaeus_). Endangered Primate Rescue Center, Cuc Phuong National Park, Vietnam (2025). Credit: Jenna Lawrence, Columbia Climate School (SDEV, SUMA)Guatapé, Colombia as seen from El Peñón de Guatapé (The Rock of Guatapé). Credit: Charly Vergara Benjumea, National Center for Disaster PreparednessWhite rhinoceros, zebras and lesser kudus resting inside a ranch, Kleinfontein, South Africa, July 21, 2024. Credit: Immanuel Hasian, Columbia SUMAA penguin studies Lamont biologist Raymond Sambrotto, the Amundsen Sea, December 2008. Credit: Xiaojun Yuan, Lamont-Doherty Earth ObservatoryPinecones in Newfoundland. Credit: Joey Parr, Columbia Climate SchoolExploring modern and paleo dunes, Molokai, Hawaii, June 2023. Credit: Jacky Austermann, Lamont-Doherty Earth ObservatorySummer interns deploying experimental mesocosms in Morningside Park Pond, NYC. Credit: Joaquim Goes, Lamont-Doherty Earth ObservatoryFlying over the A-68 iceberg that broke off the Larsen C Ice Shelf in July 2017 during a 2018 NASA Operation IceBridge campaign. Credit: Caitlin Locke, Lamont-Doherty Earth ObservatoryThis piece was installed at the Governor’s Island Climate Imaginarium in summer of 2024. The Imaginarium is an outgrowth of the Climate Imaginations Network and was led by Josh Nodiff, MA Climate & Society alum, with support from the Climate School as well as Climate School adjunct faculty and filmmaker Lydia Pilcher. Credit: Sandra Goldmark, Columbia Climate SchoolGraduate student Lauren Lewright walking across a pebble beach in Patagonia (March 2024). Credit: Jacky Austermann, Lamont-Doherty Earth ObservatoryJoint USA-South Africa teams set to head out to sample on Walker Bay during NASA BioSCape field campaign. Credit: Joaquim Goes, Lamont-Doherty Earth ObservatoryCoral tagging and replanting in Hawai’i. Courtesy: Maria Lujan, Columbia Climate SchoolCoring expedition in Budd Lake, NJ, February 1, 2025. Credit: Dorothy Peteet, Lamont-Doherty Earth ObservatoryRainbow over the Rose Garden at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (2016). Credit: Caroline Leland, Lamont-Doherty Earth ObservatoryLast Interglacial beach unit (125,000 years old), Oahu, Hawaii, June 2023. LDEO’s Mo Raymo (left) and Steve Goldstein (right). Credit: Jacky Austermann, Lamont-Doherty Earth ObservatoryStudents on an excursion during field work in Puerto Rico, 2015. Credit: Bärbel Hönisch, Lamont-Doherty Earth ObservatoryAerial view of Lamont campus taken by a drone on August 30, 2022. Credit: Tom Burke, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
You’ve probably seen hummingbirds darting among flowers to gather nectar, but did you know that hummingbirds eat spiders and tiny insects too?
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