EEPS Colloquium: Bronwen Konecky

The fingerprints of climate change in molecules, models, and mud

The magnitude and rate of modern global warming are unprecedented relative to recent millennia. We know this thanks to temperature-sensitive paleoclimate “proxy” data, which put modern warming into context. Changes to the water cycle that accompany global warming, however, have been far more difficult to contextualize with paleoclimate proxy data. Here I share recent advances our group has made in uncovering the drivers of ancient water cycle changes, particularly in the tropics, by integrating new stable O and H isotope datasets from lake sediments and other archives as well as climate model experiments. I focus on how different climate forcings affect precipitation and atmospheric moisture transport patterns during the Common Era (the past ~2,024 years), and share results for case studies in the Yucatán, the Andes, the tropical Pacific, and the global atmosphere as a whole. 

EEPS colloquia are made possible by the William C. Ferguson Fund