Response of the Pacific Northwest to Large-scale Changes in Climate during the Last 150,000 Years

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Abstract ATM-9307201 Whitlock, Cathy W. Title: Response of the Pacific Northwest to Large-scale Changes in Climate during the Last 150,000 Years This award supports a study of the paleoclimatic history of the Pacific Northwest during the last 150 kyr and to examine the causes of past climatic change. The research is based on the emerging relationships between the large-scale controls that governed climatic variations during the last 20 kyr and the effect of those controls within a particular region. These relationships allow hypotheses to be generated that describe how the varying combination of controls over the last 150 kyr may have governed regional paleoclimatic responses. The hypotheses will be tested using the long records obtained in this study. The results of this investigation will: - document the paleoclimatic history of the Pacific Northwest of the last 150 kyr; - elucidate the large-scale controls responsible for regional paleoclimatic variations; - clarify the nature and extent of abrupt climatic events that punctuated the last glacial-interglacial cycle; and - provide critical land-sea comparisons that will help disclose the long-term interactions among atmospheric and oceanic circulation, hydrology, and biota in the Pacific Northwest