P2C2: Mechanistic Interpretation of the Spatial Signatures of Mid-Holocene Precipitation over South America and the Atlantic

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This project seeks to better understand, generally, the extent to which proxies can be used to infer signatures of past climate variability and, specifically, how well proxies do with mid-Holocene precipitation variation over the tropical South America/Atlantic region. The research will focus on three activities: (i) quantifying changes in the spatial distribution of precipitation between mid-Holocene and preindustrial conditions; (ii) identifying the principal drivers of South America/Atlantic region hydroclimatic variability in the mid-Holocene as simulated by models; and (iii) examining the causal agents and feedback processes responsible for the signatures of mid-Holocene precipitation change and evaluate why the ensemble of current generation paleoclimate models often diverge substantially at the scales required to interpret paleoclimate proxies.Undergraduate students and a postdoctoral researcher will be supported. Output from the paleoclimate model simulations will be made accessible and incorporated into undergraduate and graduate classes.