Jones Faculty Lecture "Back to the Future: Gaining Insights into Modern Climate Change by Studying Climates of the Past"

Is the climate change we are experiencing now part of a natural cycle or due to human activities? How do we know? What should we expect as Earth’s surface temperature rises? Why should we care? Much like historians use historical archives to contextualize modern events, as an Earth historian I use climate archives preserved in Earth’s geologic record to help understand and contextualize modern climate change. My work explores how and why Earth’s climate has changed through time by using the remnants of organisms preserved in ocean sediments to reconstruct past climate conditions. In particular, my research focuses on a past warm climate interval that has been used as an analog for future climate conditions. At that time, Greenland was nearly ice-free, the oceans were significantly warmer than today, and atmospheric carbon dioxide played a critical role in setting the global thermostat. My lecture will explain how I read the archive of past climate from the geologic record and how these data provide insight into what may be in store for the climate system in the future. The talk is sponsored by the Thomas Roy and Lura Forest Jones Faculty Lecture and Awards Fund, established in 1966 to recognize superior teaching and scholarship at Lafayette College.