Quantifying paleoclimate dynamics using isotopes in precipitation
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- As anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gasses continue to alter the Earth's climate, it becomes increasingly vital to understand how the Earth system has responded to high temperatures and pCO2 in the past. The Cenozoic era in particular offers unique insights into climate systems equilibrated with modern to near-future radiative forcing and comparable global geographic boundary conditions. Isotopes in precipitation ([delta] D and [delta] 18O) are one of the more ubiquitous tools used to investigate Cenozoic climate, as they are sensitive to a number of hydro-climatic factors including rainout patterns, terrestrial moisture recycling, evaporative source conditions, and atmospheric mixing by transient eddies. While this sensitivity allows for the potential characterization of large-scale hydrologic dynamics, separating out these disparate effects remains a major challenge for interpreting proxy records. This dissertation aims to address this challenge by using a reactive transport model of isotopes in precipitation to develop a framework for testing hypotheses of past conditions against proxy records. This framework is then applied along with other established methods to investigate a number of Cenozoic climate questions including: (1) migration of the Pacific storm track in response to changes in the structure of tropical Pacific SST's and initiation of Northern Hemisphere glaciation through the Plio-Pleistocene; (2) peak eustatic Pliocene sea level and East Antarctic Ice Sheet stability; and (3) global latent heat transport under Early Eocene hothouse climate conditions.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic; electronic resource; remote |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Publication date | 2015 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Associated with | Winnick, Matthew Jacob |
|---|---|
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Earth System Science. |
| Primary advisor | Chamberlain, C. Page |
| Thesis advisor | Chamberlain, C. Page |
| Thesis advisor | Diffenbaugh, Noah S |
| Thesis advisor | Maher, Katharine |
| Advisor | Diffenbaugh, Noah S |
| Advisor | Maher, Katharine |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Matthew Jacob Winnick. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Earth System Science. |
| Thesis | Thesis (Ph.D.)--Stanford University, 2015. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2015 by Matthew Winnick
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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