Collaborative Research: P2C2: RUI: Combining Glacier and Paleolake Records to Limit Latest Pleistocene Climate Change in the Northern Great Basin

北达科他州立大学和米德尔伯里学院的教授和学生之间的这项合作将重建2万至11500年前美国西南部气候和地表水的变化。这些变化导致冰川和湖泊在上一次冰川期间扩张，然后随着气候变暖而完全消失。重建导致这种行为的气候条件将产生关于气候和由此产生的地表水资源变化速度的重要信息，这将改善对气候变暖下未来地表水变化的预测。上一次冰川结束时，美国西南部温度和降水变化的幅度和速度一直难以解决。这个项目将使用一种在较小规模的应用程序中显示出希望的新方法。冰川和湖泊对温度和降水的变化具有不同的敏感性。因此，同时研究以前冰川和湖泊的地质记录，为确定温度和降水在驱动冰川和湖泊行为方面的相对作用提供了机会。该项目将把基于现场的地质数据与计算机建模相结合，以量化美国西南部主要气候变化最后一幕期间的温度和降水变化。

This collaboration between professors and students at North Dakota State University and Middlebury College will reconstruct changes in climate and surface water in the southwestern United States between 20,000 and 11,500 years ago. These changes caused glaciers and lakes to expand during the last glaciation, and then disappear entirely as climate warmed. Reconstructing the climatic conditions that drove this behavior will yield important information about how quickly climate and resulting surface water resources can change, which will improve projections of future surface water changes under a warming climate.The magnitude and pace of temperature and precipitation changes in the southwestern United States at the end of the last glaciation have been difficult to resolve. This project will use a new approach that has shown promise in smaller-scale applications. Glaciers and lakes respond to changes in temperature and precipitation with differing sensitivities. Studying geologic records of former glaciers and lakes simultaneously, therefore, provides the opportunity to identify the relative roles of temperature and precipitation in driving glacier and lake behavior. This project will combine field-based geologic data with computer modeling to quantify changes in temperature and precipitation during the last episode of major climatic change in the southwestern United States.