Over the last century, the northeastern United States has experienced significant warming (~1.1°C), and a number of record high temperatures have been set around the region in recent years. Despite the massive impacts given the dense populations in this region, we do not fully understand the extent to which the trends reflect radiative forcing versus natural decadal-scale variability. Paleoclimate data provide opportunities to observe the climate system at decadal time scales that are not available from instrumental data alone, but there are currently no long-timescale, high-resolution proxy temperature data from this region that might help discern the relative influence of these factors in determining decadal temperature trends.
This research-- a collaborative effort between scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University-- will develop annually-resolved reconstructions of late Holocene temperature from the northeastern United States using living and subfossil Atlantic White Cedar trees. This species is temperature-sensitive, long-lived, and well-preserved in wetland environments. The resulting reconstructions will be used to characterize variability in regional temperatures at time scales from interannual to millennial, to evaluate climate model simulations over the last millennium, and identify the signature of internal, remote, and global forcing on the climate of the northeastern United States.
The project provides long-term context for recent seasonal temperature extremes in the northeastern United States, and in particular along the coast and the very urbanized Boston-to-New York corridor, where high temperatures have important public health and ecosystem impacts. Funding supports student research at the doctoral and undergraduate level, as well as public outreach to regional citizen scientists and professionals focused on the environment.
