| NSF Org: |
EAR Division Of Earth Sciences |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | July 11, 2014 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | July 11, 2014 |
| Award Number: | 1404819 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Jonathan G Wynn
jwynn@nsf.gov (703)292-4725 EAR Division Of Earth Sciences GEO Directorate for Geosciences |
| Start Date: | July 15, 2014 |
| End Date: | June 30, 2017 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $36,100.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $36,100.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
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| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
1960 KENNY RD COLUMBUS OH US 43210-1016 (614)688-8735 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
1090 Carmack Road Columbus OH US 43210-1002 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): | GLOBAL CHANGE |
| Primary Program Source: |
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| Program Reference Code(s): |
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| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.050 |
ABSTRACT
The Indian Summer Monsoon directly impacts over one billion people, but very little is known about how variable it can be -- whether large increases or decreases in the amount of rainfall from year to year are normal or not. This research will investigate the variability of the monsoon by sampling bottom sediments from four lakes high in the southeastern Tibetan Plateau, which are believed to hold a record stretching back well over 6000 years into the past. Understanding the range of variability will help to improve climate models that are used to simulate the region's response to a range of abrupt and long term changes in temperature, wind circulation patterns, and moisture sources. In addition, understanding the past climate conditions of the region will allow a better understanding of the regional plant and animal populations and interactions, as well as changes in the human cultures of the area. This work will strengthen international scientific relationships between U.S. and Chinese scientific institutions, scientists, and students. Support will be provided for two earlier career scientists, a Ph.D. student and undergraduate students. The research team will collaborate with the Center for Earth and Environmental Sciences in Indiana to develop a new outreach module for 4th to 9th graders that will raise the awareness of issues surrounding water resources locally in Indianapolis, IN, and the United States as well as in the monsoon region.
This research will investigate Indian summer monsoon variability during the Holocene with decadally resolved sediment records from four alpine lakes on the southeastern Tibetan Plateau. The proposed research builds on previous NSF-supported work in the Nyainqentanglha Mountains, which are a major center of action in the summer monsoon system and a primary gateway for moisture entering the Tibetan Plateau. Results from previous work demonstrate that lakes in the region contain Holocene-length sediment archives which can be dated with radiometric techniques. These lakes also have decadal sedimentation rates and contain a diverse range of climate proxies that capture both local and synoptic monsoon variability. The team will reconstruct local monsoon variability with physical sedimentology and geochemistry, and synoptic variability with hydrogen isotope measurements on terrestrial leaf waxes. The results will be synthesized with paleoclimate records from the Tibetan Plateau and surrounding region, as well as with records from key regions in the global climate system, like the tropical Pacific and the North Atlantic, to address three central questions: (i) How did Indian Summer Monsoon rainfall vary on decadal timescales during the Holocene? (ii) Is there evidence for an Indian Summer Monsoon response to changing global climate boundary conditions during the middle Holocene at ~5300 years before present? (iii) Did the Medieval Climate Anomaly and Little Ice Age discernibly influence Indian Summer Monsoon precipitation?
PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH
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PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
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This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
The Indian Summer Monsoon (ISM) provides fresh water resources to more than 1.5 billion people in southern Asia. Precipitation from the monsoon and over 46,000 glaciers sustains some of the world's largest rivers. The monsoons replenish glaciers and aquafers in the Third Pole Region (the Tibetan Plateau including the Himalaya and other surrounding regions). Understanding how a changing climate will impact the ISM and the water resources requires a firm understanding of how this system has responded to past changes in the global climate system in response to a variety of forcing mechanisms. This work, in collaboration with the ice core research, shows how the ISM is related to ocean-atmosphere variability and the ways in which its mean state can shift from one to another. This is valuable information that can be used to validate and refine climate model simulations that are key to climate prediction efforts. As such, this work directly contributes to efforts to understand how the ISM may respond to continued climate change in this very important geopolitical part of the world.
see:
- Broxton W. Bird, Yanbin Lei, Melanie Perello, Pratigya J. Polissar, Tandong Yao, Bruce Finney, Daniel Bain, David Pompeani, Lonnie G. Thompson (2016). Late Holocene Indian summer monsoon variability revealed from a 3,300-year-long lake sediment record from Nir’pa Co, southeastern Tibet. The Holocene. . Status = PUBLISHED; Acknowledgment of Federal Support = Yes ; Peer Reviewed = Yes ; DOI: 10.1177/0959683616670220
Last Modified: 08/02/2017
Modified by: Lonnie G Thompson
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