Climate Systems in Transition: Winds and Wind-Driven Circulation During the Mid-Cenozoic Global Cooling

Regents Of The University Of Michigan - Ann Arbor, Ann Arbor MI

Investigators

Abstract

Summary: This proposal request support to study evolution of wind strength and development and migration of the Intertropical Convergence Zone in the North Pacific Ocean during the late Paleogene and Neogene. The study will use grain size, isotope data and composition of dust in a series of marine cores in the tropical and subtropical Pacific to trace wind strength and dust source (Asian or American) during the Oligocene to Recent. The goals of the project are to determine the evolution of strength of zonal winds, and to trace the development and migration of the Intertropical Convergence Zone through time. In addition the study will better constrain the provenance of the American dust component and determine the changes in the latitude of the facies change between Asian-source and American source dust in the Pacific Basin.