The history of climate change in the southern hemisphere is largely unknown because we do not know with certainty the nature of the changes which occurred or the timing of the events. This proposal requests support to address these deficiencies. The principal goals of the project are to determine: 1) the nature of climatic conditions associated with the deflation of Patagonia and the associated high dust content of the atmosphere during the interval 30,000 to 12,000 years ago; 2) the nature of the glacial-to-interglacial transition at about 12,000 years ago, including the presence or absence of the Younger Dryas cooling event in the southern hemisphere; and 3) whether century-scale climatic changes known to have occurred in the northern hemisphere can be correlated with events in the southern hemisphere. The PI will use a novel, geomorphologic approach to address these problems. This research is important because it will provide records of climate change in a region where our understanding is severely limited.
