Wednesday 3 February 2016 at 3:00pm

Title: “Reconstructing tropical climate over recent centuries: adventures of a coral-paleoclimatologist”

Speaker:
Dr. Hali Kilbourne, UMCES Chesapeake Biological Laboratory

Abstract:
This talk gives an overview of my research into tropical paleoclimate over the last 5 years. The goal of my research program is to answer questions about the sensitivity of different aspects of the climate system to changing background climate conditions, providing data against which we can compare predictive climate models, and thus helping to improve our predictions of the climate system response to anthropogenic greenhouse forcing. I approach this large topic from three different directions: 1) generating new records of past climate that bridge the gap between instrumental climate records and long-term geologic evidence of Earth’s climate history, 2) developing our methods for reconstructing past climate, and 3) synthesizing individual records of past climate into the larger picture. I will highlight examples of my research on the climate of the last 1000 years in the Caribbean, on developing tropical cyclone reconstructions, and on multidecadal to centennial-scale climate patterns from multiple climate proxy records.

Host: Dr. Russell Hill, Ph.D.