EAPS

PAOC Colloquium: Kathleen Johnson (UC Irvine)
Date Time Location
December 7th, 2020 12:00pm-1:00pm https://mit.zoom.us/j/94196624830

“Monsoons, tropical rainfall, and climate change: Apaleoclimate perspective from Southeast Asia” by Kathleen R. Johnson

Abstract

The Asian Monsoon (AM) system is an important component ofthe global climate system that plays a major role in the transport of heat andmoisture from the tropics to higher latitudes. Even small variations in the strength and timing of seasonal rainfallcan have significant impacts on the billions of people living within the AMdomain, yet climate model projections of future regional-scale hydrologicchange still remain uncertain. Paleoclimate records from speleothems have substantially improved ourunderstanding of the timing and mechanisms of past AM variability on orbital todecadal time-scales, but the impact of these variations on regionalprecipitation patterns remains unclear. This is due in part to the multitude of potential controls on speleothemoxygen isotope composition, but also to the sparse coverage of the paleoclimaterecord over certain regions, such as Mainland Southeast Asia. To address this,I will present new stable isotope, trace element, and radiocarbon data fromspeleothems collected from MSEA spanning the last ~45,000 years.  I’ll highlight how our multi-proxy approach,in combination with analysis of instrumental and climate model data, can beused to unravel the response of MSEA hydroclimate to external climate forcingand internal climate variability across a range of timescales.