Project-2

Project description:  Orbital forcing is relatively well-constrained for the past 50 Ma and provides an opportunity to evaluate how Earth’s climate responds to a known forcing, thus, allowing for identification of sensitivity to variations in seasonal insolation at different latitudes and measurement of changes in the strength of climate system feedbacks responding to this forcing. Over the past 50 Ma, Earth’s background climate state has changed dramatically, with atmospheric pCO2 decreasing from ~1200 ppm to as low as 180 ppm during recent glacial maxima, accompanied by the initiation and growth of polar ice sheets. The first goal of this project is to compare the known forcing and reconstructed climate responses of the past 50 Ma, describe changes in climate system dynamics, and potentially identify the physical processes responsible for these changes. Evaluating changes over this time interval is particularly societally relevant as anthropogenic CO2 emissions may generate warming in the next two centuries similar to 40-50 Ma. The second goal is to evaluate the extent to which the Cenozoic climate record can constrain solar system dynamics beyond 50 Ma. Examining the fidelity with which Cenozoic climate records can reconstruct the known orbital variability from 0-50 Ma is essential for gauging the ability of these records to constrain potential orbital solutions from 50-66 Ma. This project will particularly make use of two statistical software packages for paleoclimate data: BIGMACS for Bayesian stratigraphic alignment and Astrochron TimeOptMCMC for orbital tuning.

About the institution: The University of California, Santa Barbara is a leading research institution where teaching and research go hand-in-hand. Our academic community of faculty, students, and staff is characterized by a culture of interdisciplinary collaboration that is responsive to the needs of our multicultural and global society. All of this takes place within a living and learning environment like no other, as we draw inspiration from the beauty and resources of our extraordinary location at the edge of the Pacific Ocean. UCSB ranks number 5 among all public universities in U.S. News and World Report's 2019 “Best Colleges” guide.