Collaborative Research: Joint Studies with Soviet Scientists to Secure Parallel Histories of Climatic Change in Siberia and Alaska

Investigator: Patricia M. Anderson    
David M. Hopkins (Co-Principal Investigator current)
Linda B. Brubaker (Co-Principal Investigator current)
                
Abstract    

     The effects of greenhouse warming are expected to be much greater in the
     arctic regions of both hemispheres than at low latitudes.  In order to fully
     understand and predict the effects of such a warming at high latitudes, it is
     necessary to reconstruct the history of climate on the continents and over the
     oceans in the Arctic.  The goal of this project is to reconstruct the
     glacial-interglacial history of climate in a region where, at present, there is
     a significant sparsity of paleoclimate information: the regions of Alaska and
     Siberia known as Beringia. Through a series of cooperative field programs,
     researchers from the US and USSR will collaborate on paleoecological,
     paleoclimatological and paleolimnological analyses which will determine both
     the history of climate change in this region and its effects on the local
     ecology.  This project is important because it will help to identify and
     quantify the natural range and rates of change in climate in regions where
     significant changes are predicted for the future.