Researchers from Lafayette and Luther Colleges, together with their undergraduate students, will investigate southern hemisphere climate change over the last six million years in order to better understand key linkages and feedbacks within the Earth's climate system. This research focuses on a region of the world -- the southern hemisphere -- whose climate history has been largely unexplored previously, but that is known to play a critical role in important climate and oceanic processes related to carbon cycling, deep ocean ventilation, and tropical heat exchange dynamics. Additionally, this project will include a detailed investigation of climate dynamics during an interval in Earth's history when global temperatures were a few degrees warmer than today's and the size of the Greenland ice sheet was much reduced. Thus, this study will provide a clearer understanding of climate conditions during an interval that represents a potential analog for future climate conditions given current patterns of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Specifically, the researchers will examine the symmetry of climate evolution between the northern and southern hemispheres and the evolving response of the climate system to changes in climate forcing due to cyclic changes in the position and orientation of the Earth in its orbit relative to the Sun.
Beyond the scientific questions addressed in this research, this project will also advance the early preparation of future Earth scientists who will have the skills to face both the scientific and societal challenges presented by climate change. Undergraduate student researchers involved with this project will gain hands-on experience in the nature and process of scientific research, direct training in the field of paleoclimatology, critical thinking skills related to scientific research and a deeper introduction to the systems thinking skills that distinguish the Earth scientist's approach to understanding the world. In addition, outreach to local K-12 students and educators by the principle investigators and their research students will further disseminate the results of this work as well as the broader contributions of paleoclimatic research and climate science.
