P2C2:Collaborative Research: Data-Model Comparison of Holocene Pacific Hydroclimate Variability on the Hawaiian Islands Using Geochemical Records and SynTraCE-21 Simulations

Suny At Albany, Albany NY

Investigators

Abstract

The objective of this award is to reconstruct changes in regional hydroclimatic conditions during the Holocene from sites on the Hawaiian Islands to investigate how these changes might be related to variations in the dominant modes of climate variability over the Pacific. The primary goal of the project is to explore how the North Pacific circulation responded to external forcing and what caused low-frequency variations of the mean climate state and changes in the high-frequency variability around the Hawaiian Islands. This goal will be addressed by using newly derived hydro-climate paleoclimate data and existing transient paleoclimate model simulations from SynTraCE-21. The development of new proxy data is an essential step towards filling the gap between tropical marine paleoclimate records and archives from the surrounding continents. This project will aid in a greater understanding of storm track strength and location, as well as providing support for post-doctoral scholars and graduate students. The Hawaiian Islands are a good site for this research because they are located under the descending branch of the Hadley circulation, a region that offers insights into the tropical-extra-tropical climate connection and has the potential to provide new insights into extra-tropical storm activity. The results from this model-data comparison could be a critical component in assessing the confidence in the reconstruction of the North Pacific climate during the mid-Holocene.