Understanding past climates
Applying our models to past climates is an important objective of CMI; in particular, we
are attempting to understand some of the
mechanisms that contribute toward abrupt climate
change and paleo-oceanography.
The relationship between global
deep ocean circulation patterns and past climate changes provides evidence for alternative
states of ocean circulation and rates of transition between states. While the
paleoceanographic record has coarse resolution in time and space compared to modern
observations, it is our only record of large-magnitude ocean climate changes with
durations exceeding decades. As the spatial and temporal resolution of paleoceanographic
data improves we should be able to use these diverse data to guide the development of
models of the role of the ocean in regulating atmospheric CO2.
 Studies of ocean circulation are also important because the ocean is
thought to have played a central role in the course of biological evolution on earth.
Click here for research on:
Click here for a popular article describing our work on the
Permian ocean circulation.
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