Memories of the Monsoon: What molecular fossils can reveal about our desert rains

With winter rain and snow in the Southwest predicted to decline as temperatures rise, our summer monsoons are becoming increasingly important for sustaining the region’s water resources. Yet how climate change will impact the monsoon is largely uncertain. In this talk I will discuss a unique approach to addressing this mystery that uses clues contained within molecular “fossils". This helps us to reconstruct ancient monsoons from a time when average global temperatures and atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide were at the same levels we expect to experience in the coming decades so we can better understand the monsoon’s future.

Dervla Meegan-Kumar is a Ph.D. student in the College of Science, Department of Geosciences. Her work focuses on the reconstruction the past dynamics of the North American Monsoon. 

This talk is a part of the Fall 2019 Science Café series hosted by the UA College of Science in partnership with Borderlands Brewing Company.

Water, Water Everywhere - But Will it Always Be?

Water is the key to life as we know it. And scientists have long realized water’s vitality, but its patterns—from rivers to rain and more—are becoming harder to predict. A little extra or a little less can have cascading effects. The water norms we grew up with aren’t the norms of the future or even the present. Researchers in the UA Carson Scholars program are working to understand how changes in water fluctuation and frequency will effect humans, animals and places. By looking at different ecosystems and different “kinds” of water, and by working with the people and species who have to adapt, we are getting closer to understanding what the future might hold. In this series, we will talk water and life, from Africa to Arizona and from ice ages to ice melt.