Alaska Pacific University is among a 10-university consortium contributing new high-resolution proxy climate records of the past 8,000 years as part of the Arctic System Science Program.
John Sykes in the field
Earth Science Associate Professor Michael Loso said Arctic system changes that occurred in the relatively recent past may be compared with results of contemporary climate models. Funded by the National Science Foundation, the project runs through 2013 and has supported fieldwork and analysis by graduate student Katie Diedrich and undergraduate John Sykes, both from APU’s Environmental Science Department.
Research aims at understanding a period of warmth similar to what is projected during the coming century.
Loso said the study focuses on the transition between a period known as the Holocene thermal maximum and the Little Ice Age, dating from 1500 to 1900 CE. Loso and Diedrich are among scientists targeting the eastern Beringia region.
The NSF project is titled Collaborative research: Nonlinearities in the Arctic climate system during the Holocene. More at http://www.polar.ch2m.com/arlss_reports/arlss_projectsdetail.aspx?cbpropnum=0909322
