Lake-based research projects

Lakes provide important continuous record of environmental variability across a range of time scales. My interest in tropical paleoclimatology has led me to develop collaborations using lake sediments to focus on key tropical climate systems. In collaboration with Jonathan Overpeck and students, I have been working on lake-based records of the Asian monsoon using cores from Nepal and Tibet. Our work indicates that the monsoon has experienced abrupt changes that may be linked to changes in ENSO or the North Atlantic, and that shorter term variability is widespread. We participate in a broader collaborative effort to explore late Holocene climate-cultural linkages in western Tibet.

In the Galapagos, lake-based sediment work highlights the Holocene history of ENSO and complements higher-resolution infomration becoming available from corals. In Africa, laminated sediments from Lake Bosumtwi point to a strong Atlantic influence on recent African monsoon changes. With recent support from the Science Foundation of Arizona, we are expanding our research into Mexico to explore Holocene monsoon variability closer to home (stay tuned!). I also collaborate with Andy Cohen on environmental reconstruction from East African lakes, complementing my coral work in this region. We have developed a detaled record of linked lake productivity-climate variability during the late Holocene

Collaborating faculty: Jonathan Overpeck, Andy Cohen, Jon Pelletier, Mark Aldenderfer (UA); Tim Shanahan (WHOI).

Students: Jessica Conroy (Ph.D. candidate), Meg Blome (Ph.D. candidate), Sarah Truebe (incoming PhD candidate 2008)

Link to Environmental Sciences Lab (Overpeck group)

Link to Paleolimnology home page (Cohen group)

Relevant Publications: