PECASE: High-resolution Malaysian Speleothem Records of Paleo-El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and 20th Century Calibration

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Funding for this PECASE award will use fast-growing speleothems collected from caves in Borneo to generate seasonally-resolved proxy records of West Pacific Warm Pool precipitation from 500A.D. to the present. The last millennium is a useful time period for merging proxy and model data towards understanding the response of the global climate system to radiative forcing. Tropical Pacific speleothems have the potential to provide sub-annually-resolved records of precipitation capable of resolving ENSO and low-frequency climate variability for thousands of years into the past, but this potential remains largely unexplored. Specifically, the researcher will compare high-resolution speleothem oxygen-18, carbon-13, and Magnesium/Calcite ratio timeseries to instrumental climate records over the last 150 to reconstruct El Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events and tropical Pacific climate over the last 1500yrs. A critical aspect of this PECASE award is to place the interpretation of the resulting speleothem geochemical proxy records in the context of on-site monitoring of local weather, rainfall oxygen-18, dripwater oxygen-18, carbon-13, Magnesium/Calcite ratios, and drip rate. This data will allow the researcher to investigate the modern day relationship between regional-scale climate, rainfall oxygen-18, and dripwater geochemistry at a tropical site currently affected by ENSO. The overall science goal of the project is to investigate the possible role of tropical Pacific climate variability in shaping global climate patterns of the last millennium, whether the tropical Pacific climate system responds to radiative forcing, and to what extent 20th century tropical Pacific climate may be unprecedented (or not) with respect to ENSO variability. The project includes a broad educational initiative aimed at building and maintaining close ties between Georgia Tech's School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences (EAS), Miller Grove public high school, and The Weather Channel (TWC). Working closely with Miller Grove science teachers, the researcher's efforts will include climate curriculum development with hands-on scientific activities including fieldtrips to local caves and to the broadcast studios at TWC. The researcher will use new collaboration with TWC to expose undergraduate and graduate students to the intersection of climate change research and mass media through TWC internships and an EAS workshop titled "Climate Change and the Media."