This award will integrate marine and terrestrial data from the Pacific Northwest with the National Center For Atmospheric Research (NCAR) Regional Climate Model 2 (RegCM2) to investigate regional-scale climate variability over the last 150,000 years. The investigators will use the RegCM2 model because it offers an advantage in spatial resolution (i.e., tens of kilometers compared to hundreds of kilometers in global circulation models) that will provide rigorous data-model comparisons and the resolution of potentially important climate feedbacks in the Pacific Northwest region; a region where climate is strongly influenced by topographic complexity, coastlines, and proximity to the Pacific Ocean.
The investigators will test the following three scientific hypotheses:
"Hypothesis 1. On millennial time scales, local and regional changes in sea-surface temperatures in the Northeast Pacific, and perhaps changes in continental heating, are large enough to have influenced atmospheric pressure gradients that in turn substantially affected the intensity of coastal upwelling."
"Hypothesis 2. The marine pollen record faithfully reflects climate-induced changes in the distribution of terrestrial vegetation while changes in oceanic transport play a secondary role in the observed marine pollen records of the Northeast Pacific."
"Hypothesis 3. Changes in sediment provenance and terrigenous sediment accumulation in the Northeast Pacific reflect regional climate change and its effect on continental runoff and surface-ocean circulation."
Furthermore, this award will address several hypotheses of importance to the field of paleoclimatology in an integrative and holistic manner using marine and terrestrial data from the Pacific Northwest as inputs to climate models. In addition to integrative scientific goals, the award will also provide unique training in integrative climate research for graduate and undergraduate students at Oregon State University.
