Collaborative Research: quantifying precipitation changes in the South American subtropics over the late Pleistocenee

包括美洲在内的世界许多地区正在经历干旱及其政治后果。 关键的问题是为什么，原因是自然的还是人为的？ 这个问题和其他问题的答案将帮助我们规划未来，因为地球上的一些地区继续变暖和干燥。 该项目将前往南美洲中部的安第斯山脉--一个政治上既脆弱又最近遭受旱灾的地区。其目的是研究过去气温和干旱的相互作用，以寻找未来可能存在的联系。该项目的主要目的是创建一个地图的大小变化的古代湖泊在中部安第斯山脉，巨大的祖先，现代湖泊在该地区，如的的喀喀湖。保存完好的海岸线标志着这些古老湖泊的范围，使用最先进的技术，可以确定这些特征的年龄。地图和年代测定对于将湖泊大小（以及过去的降雨量）与地球温度变化状态联系起来至关重要，这是从其他记录中众所周知的。 简而言之，这些重建将帮助科学家更好地了解该地区的降雨量在未来几十年至几个世纪内将如何变化。该奖项由古气候变化展望计划和国际科学与工程办公室共同资助。

Many regions of the world, including the Americas, are experiencing drought and its political consequences. The critical question is why, and are the causes natural or man-made? The answer to this and other questions will help us plan for what is ahead, as some regions of the planet continue to warm and dry. This project will travel to the central Andes of South America- a region that is both politically fragile and recently drought stricken. The aim is to study the interplay of temperature and drought in the past, for clues to their probable connections in the future. The main purpose of the project is to create a map of changes in the sizes of ancient lakes in the central Andes, giant ancestors to modern lakes in the region such as Lake Titicaca. Well-preserved shorelines mark the extent of these ancient lakes, and using state-of-the art techniques, the age of these features can be determined. The mapping and dating is vital to relating lake size (and therefore rainfall amounts in the past) to the changing temperature state of the planet, which is well known from other records. In short, these reconstructions will help scientists to better understand how rainfall in this region will change in the coming decades to centuries.This award is cofunded by the Paleo Perspectives on Climate Change Program and the Office of International Science and Engineering.