Oceans of History - Our Changing Seas
Dr. Howard Spero
October 1, 2010
“That ocean is not silent.
At first it told to me only the plain little tales of calm beaches and near ports, but with the years it grew more friendly and spoke of other things; of things more strange and more distant in space and time.” –H.P. Lovecraft, “The White Ship”, 1919
H.P. Lovecraft, a fantasy and science fiction writer, could have had no way of knowing the scientific validity of his words, decades before paleoceanographers would study the role of the ocean in controlling past, present, and future climate change.
Dr. Howard Spero, professor of geology at UC Davis, will explain how to understand and predict climate change through the study of one of the ocean’s most fascinating ancient inhabitants, fossil foraminifera.
Dr. Spero will discuss the existence of foraminifera in the surface waters of glacial oceans 10,000-150,000 years ago. Find out how the chemical composition of these shells can help us comprehend glacial ocean sea surface temperatures and changes in ocean circulation with considerable accuracy. Research presented provides a critical component to modelers trying to tune global climate models for future climate prediction.
About Dr. Howard Spero
Dr. Spero’s research focuses on the biological and environmental parameters that affect the stable isotope and trace metal geochemistry of the shells of recent and fossil organisms; paleoclimatology, marine micropaleontology, and paleoceanography.
An ongoing multi-year field research program involving undergraduate and graduate students has been studying living planktonic foraminifera in the Southern California Borderland and the Caribbean. The results of this study are being used to interpret fossil foraminifera stable isotope data from Indian and Atlantic Ocean deep sea cores in order to reconstruct paleoenvironmental sea surface temperatures, nutrient levels and CO2 concentrations during the Pleistocene.
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