Jason Smerdon
Columbia University, NY·Earth & Environmental Science
Tropical rainfall is largely organized by the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), a belt of rising air and heavy rain that circles the globe near the equator. Shifts in its position or width can change where rain falls for billions of people.
- Fields
Earth & Environmental Science
- Topics
paleoclimate
Intertropical Convergence Zone
tree rings
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Aug 2027
What they work on
- Reconstruct wet-season rainfall over at least the last 200 years across the neotropics by measuring stable oxygen isotopes (δ18O) in tree-ring cellulose from Guatemala, Honduras, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Chile.
- Use these tree-ring rainfall records to determine how the position and width of the Intertropical Convergence Zone, the equatorial rain belt, have changed and how they relate to global modes of climate variability.
- Estimate global temperature and hydroclimate responses after large volcanic eruptions using paleoclimate data assimilation products, which merge proxy records with models, and validate them against other reconstructions and documentary evidence.
- Compare proxy-based eruption responses in sea-surface temperature, atmospheric pressure and ITCZ position, sorted by season and eruption latitude, with Common Era climate model simulations to identify sources of uncertainty.
More about the research
Weather records cover only recent decades, so scientists rely on natural archives such as tree rings, ice cores and corals to see how climate varied over longer periods. Two collaborative projects use these past-climate records to ask how the tropical rain belt and global climate respond to natural drivers, from ocean-atmosphere cycles to large volcanic eruptions.
Why it matters
Changes in the tropical rain belt and the cooling and drying that follow major eruptions affect water supplies, farming and disaster risk across many regions. Longer records of tropical rainfall and of how climate responds to volcanoes could help forecast future rainfall patterns, quantify these risks and improve how societies prepare for the climate swings large eruptions trigger.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Collaborative Research: Diagnosing Global Climatic Responses to Large Volcanic Eruptions in Climate Reconstructions and Model Simulations
NSF · Sep 2023 – Aug 2027
Collaborative Research: Intertropical Convergence Zone Variations from Stable Oxygen Isotope Tree-ring Records in the Tropical Americas
NSF · Feb 2024 – Jan 2027
Closest labs
Bronwen Konecky
Washington University in St Louis, MO·Earth & Environmental Science·Early-career
Reconstruct 10,000 years of Holocene rainfall and vegetation in Central America and northern South America by measuring hydrogen isotopes of leaf waxes in six dated lake cores from Guatemala and Venezuela.
Diana Thatcher
Iowa State University, IA·Earth & Environmental Science
Reconstruct annually resolved, millennial-length northeast Pacific sea-surface temperatures from growth increments in shells of the Pacific geoduck, a long-lived marine clam.
Nicole Davi
William Paterson University of New Jersey, NJ·Earth & Environmental Science
Develop two 1,000-year records of wood anatomical traits, such as cell wall thickness, frost rings and blue rings, from Siberian larch and Siberian pine in Mongolia to capture brief temperature extremes.
The school
Columbia University: 89 labs on PI Pages, $1.4B a year on research, 625 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
A start for your email. Fill in the brackets.