Pincelli Hull
Yale University, CT·Earth & Environmental Science
The oceans have absorbed about one-third of the carbon dioxide that humans have released since the Industrial Revolution. Nobody yet knows how well they will keep doing this as the planet warms, and that uncertainty matters for predicting future climate.
- Fields
Earth & Environmental Science
Ecology & Evolution
- Topics
Pliocene
paleoclimate
paleoceanography
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Dec 2026
What they work on
- Quantify how changes in ocean circulation alone alter marine carbon storage in a warm Pliocene ocean, using targeted Community Earth System Model (CESM) experiments.
- Test how temperature-dependent remineralization, the faster microbial breakdown of sinking organic matter in warm water, changes short- and long-term ocean carbon storage, alone and combined with circulation, in CESM simulations.
- Compare model-predicted carbon storage against geochemical proxy records of ocean pH, dissolved inorganic carbon and temperature from four Pacific Ocean sites during the Pliocene.
- Assess how well state-of-the-art climate models simulate carbon cycling and ocean biogeochemistry, using the Pliocene model-data comparison as a testbed.
More about the research
One way to find out is to study a past warm period. The Pliocene, about 3 million years ago, was warmer than today and is widely used as a stand-in for a future warmer world.
Why it matters
Knowing how much carbon the ocean will keep absorbing as it warms is critical for projecting future climate. By testing which ocean processes controlled carbon storage in the warm Pliocene, this work could improve the carbon-cycle predictions of climate models. Climate scientists and policymakers who rely on those projections would benefit.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Jordan Abell
Lehigh University, PA·Earth & Environmental Science
Test whether North Pacific deep-water formation and an active Pacific Meridional Overturning Circulation existed during the warm Pliocene, using multi-proxy records from four IODP sediment cores.
Nicole Lovenduski
University of Colorado Boulder, CO·Earth & Environmental Science
Investigate how small, highly active Southern Ocean hotspots control the transport of heat and carbon between the surface and the deep ocean, using simulations with the Community Earth System Model.
Yair Rosenthal
Rutgers University-New Brunswick, NJ·Earth & Environmental Science
Reconstruct movements of the Southern Westerly Winds during the Holocene and five earlier interglacials (MIS 5e, 9e, 11c, 13, 19) using Chilean Margin sediments from site J1001.
The school
Yale University: 73 labs on PI Pages, $1.5B a year on research, 438 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
A start for your email. Fill in the brackets.