Diana Thatcher
Iowa State University, IA·Earth & Environmental Science
The northeast Pacific Ocean shapes fisheries, forests, wildfire, drought and snowpack across western North America. In the past decade, extreme marine heatwaves have hit the region hard.
- Fields
Earth & Environmental Science
Ecology & Evolution
- Topics
paleoclimate
climate reconstruction
sclerochronology
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jun 2027
What they work on
- Reconstruct annually resolved, millennial-length northeast Pacific sea-surface temperatures from growth increments in shells of the Pacific geoduck, a long-lived marine clam.
- Combine geoduck records with tree-ring chronologies to resolve disagreements among earlier tree-ring reconstructions and test whether ocean–land climate links have shifted over time.
- Assess long-term links between the tropical and northern Pacific by integrating tropical coral growth records with existing reconstructions of the El Niño Southern Oscillation.
More about the research
Yet good temperature records go back only to about 1900, so it is unclear how unusual today's climate really is. Natural archives that grow one layer per year can extend that record back a thousand years or more.
Why it matters
A long, annual record of northeast Pacific ocean temperature could show whether recent marine heatwaves are outside the region's natural range. It could also provide benchmarks for testing climate models. This matters for people who depend on western North American fisheries, forests, water supply and wildfire planning.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Samantha Stevenson
University of California-Santa Barbara, CA·Earth & Environmental Science·Early-career
Build an oxygen isotope "isoscape" of tropical Pacific seawater and rainfall during El Niño and La Niña, using samples from long-running collection sites and a new high-resolution, isotope-enabled ocean reanalysis.
Deepti Singh
Washington State University, WA·Earth & Environmental Science
Determine how atmosphere, ocean and land-surface conditions, including El Niño Southern Oscillation and unusual soil moisture, influence the extent, frequency, persistence and amplitude of ridges over western North America, using observations and CMIP6 simulations.
Jessica Conroy
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, IL·Earth & Environmental Science
Map an oxygen isotope "isoscape" of the modern tropical Pacific from long-running seawater and precipitation collection sites, showing how seawater and rainfall isotope values shift between El Niño and La Niña phases.
The school
Iowa State University: 23 labs on PI Pages, $462M a year on research, 327 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
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