Collaborative Research: P2C2--Insights into Tropical Pacific Climate from Paleoproxy Data Assimilation into an Intermediate Complexity Dynamical Model

该项目广泛地寻求重建和解释过去一千年来热带太平洋对辐射强迫的反应。 这将通过将珊瑚和树木的高分辨率古代理同化到动力学厄尔尼诺南方涛动模式中来实现。将研究动力学信息的古重建，以解决以下科学问题：（i）热带太平洋如何对外部辐射强迫作出反应;（ii）ENSO是否表现出类似体制的行为，是否是主要由于混乱或噪声驱动的动力学造成的ENSO不规则现象;（iii）ENSO在过去是如何变化的;动力ENSO模式能否改善热带太平洋的古代用指标重建。这些问题对可预测性和十年变率有影响，并与了解ENSO及其过去、现在和未来的影响有关。从ENSO的动力学模型与记录的预测技巧的古气候重建添加信息是一种新的方法，并可能提高热带太平洋代理记录的解释。潜在的更广泛的影响包括随着时间的推移对ENSO行为的更好的理解，对研究项目中本科生的支持，以及通过哥伦比亚大学和马里兰州大学的良好推广工作向公众推广。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project broadly seeks to reconstruct and interpret the state of the tropical Pacific over the last millennium in response to radiative forcing. This will be accomplished by assimilating high-resolution paleo-proxies from corals and trees into a dynamical El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) model.Dynamically informed paleo-reconstructions will be studied to address the following science questions: (i) how does the tropical Pacific respond to external radiative forcing (ERF); (ii) does ENSO exhibit regime-like behavior and is ENSO irregularity primarily due to chaotic or to noise-driven dynamics; (iii) how has ENSO varied in the past; and (iv) can a dynamical ENSO model improve paleo-proxy reconstructions of the tropical Pacific. These questions have implications for predictability and decadal variability and are relevant to understanding ENSO and its impacts, past, present and future. Adding information into paleoclimate reconstructions from a dynamical model of ENSO with documented predictive skill is a novel approach and may enhance interpretation of Tropical Pacific proxy records. The potential Broader Impacts include improved understanding of ENSO behavior over time, support of undergraduate students in the research project, and outreach to the public through well-established outreach efforts at Columbia University and the University of Maryland.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.