Collaborative Research: P2C2: RUI: Combining Glacier and Paleolake Records to Limit Latest Pleistocene Climate Change in the Northern Great Basin

Middlebury College, Middlebury VT

Investigators

Abstract

This collaboration between professors and students at North Dakota State University and Middlebury College will reconstruct changes in climate and surface water in the southwestern United States between 20,000 and 11,500 years ago. These changes caused glaciers and lakes to expand during the last glaciation, and then disappear entirely as climate warmed. Reconstructing the climatic conditions that drove this behavior will yield important information about how quickly climate and resulting surface water resources can change, which will improve projections of future surface water changes under a warming climate. The magnitude and pace of temperature and precipitation changes in the southwestern United States at the end of the last glaciation have been difficult to resolve. This project will use a new approach that has shown promise in smaller-scale applications. Glaciers and lakes respond to changes in temperature and precipitation with differing sensitivities. Studying geologic records of former glaciers and lakes simultaneously, therefore, provides the opportunity to identify the relative roles of temperature and precipitation in driving glacier and lake behavior. This project will combine field-based geologic data with computer modeling to quantify changes in temperature and precipitation during the last episode of major climatic change in the southwestern United States.