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计划未来会发生什么，因为地球上的一些地区继续变暖和变干。该项目将前往南美洲中部的安第斯山脉，该地区政治脆弱，最近遭受旱灾。其目的是研究过去温度和干旱的相互作用，以寻找未来它们可能联系的线索。该项目的主要目的是创建一张安第斯山脉中部古代湖泊大小变化的地图，这些湖泊是该地区的巨人祖先，也是该地区的现代湖泊，如喀喀湖。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。测绘和测年对于将湖泊大小(因此过去的降雨量)与地球不断变化的温度状态联系起来至关重要，这一点从其他记录中是众所周知的。简而言之，这些重建将帮助科学家更好地了解未来几十年到几个世纪内该地区的降雨量将如何变化。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.