Terrestrial Organics since The Oligocene (TOTO): The Rains Down in Africa

渐新世以来的陆地有机物（TOTO）：非洲的降雨

• 批准号: 2425776
• 负责人: Kevin Uno
• 金额: $ 61.36万
• 依托单位: Harvard University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-10-01 至 2025-03-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2425776&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Terrestrial; Organics; since; Oligocene; TOTO

Terrestrial Organics since The Oligocene (TOTO): The Rains Down in AfricaToday, nearly 100 million people depend on the lands in the Sahel region, which is highly sensitive to flooding, droughts, and wildfires, putting food and other resources at risk. Africa is also rich in human evolutionary history, including early human fossil sites, evidence for multiple dispersals out of Africa, and the earliest stone tool innovations. Despite the region’s importance for understanding climate change and human evolution, there is a lack of understanding of tropical Africa over long intervals. To that end, the investigators will generate new West African records of rain, vegetation, and fire over the last 25 million years to study changes in the Sahel ecosystem, which runs east-west across Africa south of the Sahara desert, and to quantify the effects of natural cycles in Earth’s orbit and long-term changes in global and regional conditions on ecosystem change and human evolution. The investigators will convene a new African Climate Conference to facilitate knowledge sharing, networking events, and laboratory tours at Lamont to directly combat the long history of the exclusion of African researchers in Western science by forming deep, lasting collaborations.The Tropics comprise half of Earth’s surface, serve as the global hydrological pump, and contain the world’s largest potential source of methane, yet there is a dearth of data and understanding of tropical climate over the Cenozoic. Tropical Africa, in particular, has been historically under-studied, despite its importance for understanding human evolution, tropical hydroclimate, and terrestrial ecosystem responses to climate change. Projections of future climate scenarios require quantification of past climatic responses to orbital forcings and boundary conditions (i.e., regional albedo, ice volume, global temperature). The investigators will generate new long-term and high-resolution precipitation, vegetation, and fire reconstructions using biomarkers preserved in a marine sediment core that capture the last 25 million years of tropical West African climate. Statistical and time series analyses will evaluate the amplitudes, periodicities, means, and relationships between hydroclimate, ecosystem, and fire proxies through time to decipher the differences in the amplitude of variability in the study windows to characterize sensitivity in the context of various boundary conditions. This project will provide crucial environmental context for the evolution of our earliest ancestors and will inform models of future terrestrial responses to global warming in this highly sensitive region.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.

陆地有机物以来是渐新世（Toto）：非洲的下雨，将近1亿人依靠萨赫勒地区的土地，这对洪水，干旱和野火非常敏感，使食物和其他资源危险。非洲也富含人类进化史，包括早期的人类化石遗址，非洲多次散布的证据以及最早的石材工具创新。尽管该地区对于理解气候变化和人类进化的重要性，但长期间隔缺乏对热带非洲的理解。为此，调查人员将在过去的2500万年中生成新的西非雨，植被和火灾记录，以研究萨赫勒生态系统的变化，萨赫勒生态系统的变化在撒哈拉沙漠以南的非洲东部地区运行，并量化自然循环在地球轨道中的自然循环的影响，以及在全球和区域条件上对生态系统变化和人类进化的变化。调查人员将召集一次新的非洲气候会议，以促进拉蒙特（Lamont）在拉蒙特（Lamont）进行知识共享，网络活动和实验室之旅，直接通过形成深层，持久的合作来打击西方科学中的非洲研究人员的悠久历史。热带的一半完成地球表面的一半，作为全球水力学泵，并在其中构成了世界上的潜在水平，并在那里进行了莫基的境地，并且是一项途径，并且是甲烷的死亡，这是一项途径，并且是一项途径，并且是一个属于甲烷的范围，并且是一个属于世界的水平，并且是一个属于世界的水平，并且是一个属于世界的水平，并且是一个属于世界的水平，并且是一个属于世界的水平，并且是一个范围的范围。新生代。尤其是热带非洲历史上一直没有研究，使其对理解人类进化，热带氢化气候和陆地生态系统对气候变化的反应的重要性。未来气候场景的预测需要量化过去对轨道锻造和边界条件的杂物反应（即区域反照率，冰量，全球温度）。研究人员将使用保存在海洋沉积物核心中的生物标志物来产生新的长期和高分辨率降水，植被和火灾重建，从而捕获了过去2500万年的热带西非气候。统计和时间序列分析将评估氢化气候，生态系统和火灾代理之间的放大器，周期，均值和关系，以破译研究窗口中可变性放大器的差异，以表征各种边界条件的敏感性。该项目将为我们最早的祖先的演变提供关键的环境环境，并将为这个高度敏感的地区的未来陆地变暖的未来陆地响应提供信息。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并通过基金会的智力优点和更广泛的影响来评估NSF的法定任务。