This research, generally, seeks to provide a more integrative understanding of the spatiotemporal variability of trans-North Pacific climate through the use of new and existing data sets of tree rings.
Specifically, the researchers seek to answer the following scientific questions: 1) How has the North Pacific atmosphere-ocean circulation varied over the past several centuries to millennium during such events as the Medieval Climate Anomaly and the Little Ice Age; 2) Can different paleoreconstructions of Pacific Decadal Variability (PDV) be reconciled? 3) Is the PDV during the recent era (e.g. 1976-77 Pacific warming, regime shift) unique relative to past centuries? 4) Do robust and preferred decadal to multidecadal oscillatory modes of PDV exist? 5) Is the PDV basin-wide with robust linkages between the tropics and higher northern latitudes on both sides of the North Pacific? and 6) How have internal and external forcings impacted past North Pacific climate on multiple timescales?
The potential broader impacts include supporting an early investigator and strong and substantive scientific collaboration with Russian colleagues including foreign exchange of students between the U.S. and Russia.
