Imagine North America
50 million years ago...
(My 'Eocene field
trip' in Monteverde
Cloud Forest Preserve,
Costa Rica.) |
Evidence from Eocene
fossil flora and fauna suggests that it looked something like the environment
in this photo. Middle and high latitudes were warm enough to support palm
trees and crocodiles, while tropical temperatures were not much warmer
than those of today. My dissertation research focuses on how greenhouse
gases, such as methane and carbon dioxide, and associated changes in atmospheric
and ocean heat transport may have produced such a warm, equable climate.
I am also interested in how such gases may have been responsible for the
rapid warming at the end of the Paleocene, 55 Ma, a time known as the 'Paleocene-Eocene
Thermal Maximum'. |
RECENT NEWS:
In September I attended the
Helmholtz Institute (HISP) for Sumpercomputational
Physics
Summer School 2002 in Potsdam, Germany
Scientific
Supercomputing in Climate Research
|
Contact Info:
1156 High Street
Dept. of Earth Sciences
UC Santa Cruz
Santa Cruz, CA 95064
shellito@es.ucsc.edu
Publications
Presentations
Teaching Portfolio
(Coming Soon!)
Curriculum
Vitae
UCSC
Earth Sciences
Paleoclimate Research
Group
|
