The observational record only provides a limited view of how the climate system works because it only spans the past ~150 years. Proxy records allow us to 'extend' the observations and to understand how the climate system varies and respond to external forcings on timescales that are beyond the observational record. In my research, I generate new proxy records and combine them with other published records to obtain a more complete spatiotemporal view of how the climate system has evolved in the past.

I currently focus on understanding how the Pacific Ocean sea surface temperature has evolved and how such evolution is related (or not related) to hydroclimate changes. 

The climate system varies naturally through interactions between the atmosphere, ocean, vegetation, ice sheets, and sea ice and can be forced by changes in boundary conditions (e.g., orbital configurations, atmospheric greenhouse gases concentration). Even though observations (instrumental and proxy records) allow us to understand the spatiotemporal evolution of the climate system, it is difficult to infer drivers of the variations seen in these records. Climate models can overcome this difficulty posed by observations. My research involves analyzing climate model simulations to identify drivers that can potentially explain changes seen in observations.

Climate models are the primary tools to understand how the future climate would be. However, climate models are also imperfect representations of the world and contain biases and errors. I compare these state-of-the-art climate models with observations (both instrumental and proxy records) to determine the fidelity of climate models in simulating different aspects of the climate system (e.g., multidecadal variability, megadroughts).

Proxy records is the primary means to understand past environmental changes. However, they are indirect recorders of the past environment. Therefore, we can only infer how the environment has changed in the past based on these indirect records.  Even though we have gained a better understanding on how different proxies respond to the environment, there remain nuances on what these proxy records represent. My research involves using satellite observations and comparing proxy records with observations to improve our interpretations of proxy records, and consequently how the climate has changed in the past.