Our paper in Quaternary International just went online today. The pithy takeaway: Ancient dryland farmers in Utah adapted to warming and drying during the MCA but were unable to adapt to increased variability at the MCA-LIA transition, and abandoned the area for maize farming. Because increased variability is one of the near certainties for temperate semi-aridContinue reading “Simulated impact of paleoclimate change on Fremont Native American maize farming in Utah, 850–1449 CE, using crop and climate models”
Tag Archives: paleoclimatology
Eocene extreme
About 50 Ma ago [CO2]_atmos was about 1000 ppm. The climate was radically different than it is today. This article in the Atlantic summarises the results of a study on a terrestrial proxy of temperature, which suggest that land surface temperature was greater than previously believed. This is interesting from a climate change perspective becauseContinue reading “Eocene extreme”
Our new paper just came out in PLoS One: Little Ice Age climatic erraticism as an analogue for future enhanced hydroclimatic variability across the American Southwest
The American Southwest has experienced a series of severe droughts interspersed with strong wet episodes over the past decades, prompting questions about future climate patterns and potential intensification of weather disruptions under warming conditions. Here we show that interannual hydroclimatic variability in this region has displayed a significant level of non-stationarity over the past millennium.Continue reading “Our new paper just came out in PLoS One: Little Ice Age climatic erraticism as an analogue for future enhanced hydroclimatic variability across the American Southwest”
AGU Paleoclimatology session
They never know quite where to put me at AGU. But I was very pleased to see that this year others are getting into the same things I have been: (1) strange behavior of the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA) in the Southwest USA; and (2) computer models! Omid Mazdiyasni (UC Irvine & YSSP2016) came byContinue reading “AGU Paleoclimatology session”
Marcus James Thomson, Ph.D. 