Research Interests
Research Statement: My broad objective is to
improve reconstructed estimates of climate variability during the
late-Holocene. My research focuses on large-scale climate reconstructions
during this time period, analyzing statistical climate reconstruction
techniques using proxy and pseudo-proxy records, and modeling of the
underlying connections between proxies and climate. The specific areas of
my research are statistical climate-field reconstructions, geothermal
climate reconstructions, and process modeling of land-atmosphere
interactions, subsurface thermodynamics, and tree growth. Please see my
publications page for more information on my
contributions in these fields.
Research Background: Climate reconstructions
during the late-Holocene are important because they span the transition
from the pre- to post-industrial eras and because proxies are abundant
enough during this period to yield hemispheric and global reconstructions.
Such large-scale reconstructions of climate are useful for dynamical
analyses and have the potential to provide a mechanistic understanding of
how different parts of the climate system have interacted in the past.
These reconstructions also provide important validation fields for General
Circulation Models (GCMs) and therefore improve our ability to predict
future climatic change. Recent attempts to reconstruct millennial
surface temperature histories have sparked a vigorous debate about
the reconstruction methods, the strength of climate-proxy connections, the
reconstruction uncertainties, and what conclusions can be drawn from the
results. Much of the debate is fueled by a growing number of studies that
have estimated different ranges of low-frequency variability during the
last millennium, which varies by as much as a factor of four during
pre-1900 intervals. More fundamentally, however, many of the
reconstruction methods assume linear and stationary relationships between
climate and proxy indicators that must be further validated. Most proxies
process climate through unique, multivariate and non-linear filters, with
significant implications for the calibrations and optimizations used in
statistical reconstruction approaches. It therefore is imperative to
improve our understanding of climate-proxy connections and the
implications for statistical reconstruction methods. Future research into
these areas will reduce the uncertainty of late-Holocene climate
reconstructions and have considerable implications for estimates of
climate sensitivity and natural variability.
Additional Research on Campus
Sustainability: I am additionally interested in the intersection of
science and society, with a particular emphasis on policy making. I have
worked with the League of Conservation
Voters, the Michigan
Environmental Council and Sustainable U of M. The latter
group allowed me to work on various sustainability issues on the
University of Michigan campus, including an investigation of
vermicomposting as an alternative means of food-waste management. More
recently, I have also worked to produce an Initial Sustainability Report
on Barnard College, in collaboration with the Barnard Environmental
Science Department. More information on campus sustainability initiatives
can be found here.
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