I am part of collaborative projects collecting paleoclimate proxy data from locations in tropical South and Central America to understand the magnitude and timing of past climate changes in these regions. These projects are described below.
Quelccaya Ice Cap, Peru
Our research near the largest tropical ice cap, Quelccaya Ice Cap in Peru, focuses on understanding Last Glacial Maximum to Holocene climate conditions using ice-cap extents combined with glacial modeling as well as lake sediment records. Results thus far from this research include: Kelly et al., 2012, Stroup et al., 2014, Stroup et al., 2015 and Malone et al., 2015.
As part of this project, we examined environmental conditions near Quelccaya Ice Cap and in southeastern Peru. This research is reported here: Beal et al., 2013, Beal et al., 2014 and Benito et al., 2018.
We also examined past glacier extents in the broader South American and tropical regions. These are reported here: Sagredo et al., 2016, Sagredo et al., 2018 and Vickers et al., 2021, .
In addition to developing paleoclimate data near Quelccaya, we determined a low-latitude, high-altitude 10Be production rate using radiocarbon as an independent dating method (Kelly et al., 2015). This 10Be production-rate calibration is in collaboration with the NSF-funded initiative CRONUS-Earth (Phillips et al., 2015a, Phillips et al., 2015b, Phillips et al., 2015c).
My collaborators on this project are Yarrow Axford (Northwestern University), Thomas Lowell (University of Cincinnati), Fred Phillips (New Mexico Tech), Raymond Pierrehumbert (now at University of Oxford), Colby Smith (Geological Survey of Sweden), Susan Zimmerman (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory) and graduate students at our respective institutions.
Funding for this research is from NSF (EAR-1003460), CRONUS-Earth, Lamont Climate Center, Comer Family Foundation and Dartmouth College.
Sierra Nevada Del Cocuy, Colombia
More information coming soon!
My collaborators on this project are Gordon Bromley (National University of Ireland, Galway), Alice Doughty (University of Maine) and graduate students at Dartmouth College.
Funding for this research is from NSF (EAR-2022727).
Tropical glacier extents and Equilibrium Line Altitudes (ELAs) during the Last Glacial Maximum and Termination 1
More information coming soon!
My collaborators on this project are Alice Doughty (University of Maine), Maxwell Cunningham and Carly Peltier (Dartmouth College) and graduate students at Dartmouth College.
Funding for this research is from NSF (EAR-2102927).