Our faculty are organized into four units, but frequently work on interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary projects across these divisions.

We use a range of proxies to reconstruct the Earth’s ancient climate, from mud to ice to shells of single-celled organisms. This dive into the past can help us understand the Earth’s present and future climates.

Studies of icy and snowy landscapes are inextricably linked with learning about our climate system— past, present and future. Our cryosphere scientists work locally and globally examining ancient ice cores, glacial melting, and controls on snowfall.

Geography researchers in our college are on the forefront of understanding the Earth's environments, landscapes, people and places.

Faculty in this research area are taking a watershed view of today’s toughest water resource challenges — drought and disaster risk, disappearing snowpack, diplomacy between shared basins and more.

Whether abrupt threats such as coastal storms or the slow creep of sea-level rise, we undertake rigorous, interdisciplinary study of hazards and the human response to them to help build resilient communities.

Our atmospheric sciences research, which is often tied to investigating the Earth’s climate system, employs a variety of methods, from field work to numerical modeling to lab work.