Deciphering Climate Change Throughout Geological History - Razor Lecture Series

This talk will discuss the importance of studying Earth’s climate throughout the geological record (100,000 to multi-millions of years ago). It is important to understand the tools required for scientist to ‘read’ the geological history books, sedimentary rocks. In particular, he’ll explain various lines of evidence for understanding ancient and modern climate change that provide great evidence for human impacted climate change. It is important to recognize that climate related impacts go well beyond temperature and here we will discuss oceanic oxygen variability and it’s known effects. Numerous lines of evidence are pointing to ways modern, human induced, climate variability is happening at an unprecedented rate as they are changing faster than ancient natural climate change.

Jeremy Owens (PhD) and his colleagues conduct research to better understand the causes and consequences of natural climate events. Specifically, his work investigates the natural variability of ocean oxygen contents and its effects on chemistry and biology. These vents are our best windows into the feedbacks associated with climate change and potential extinctions. As a geochemist with broad interest his work spans a substantial portion of the geological timescale as he is in search for understanding the natural response of Earth to catastrophic events as a way to better predict potential future climate scenarios.