Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Good morning.
We're at Whipple Dam, Pennsylvania.
This is a very quiet lake--
the sort of place that geologists can take proxy
records of ancient climate.
In module one, we learned about how proxies work.
And in module two, we're going to talk about recent climate,
which is a combination of both proxy records and
instrumental records.
We could come here to a lake like this and make a proxy
record of very recent climate.
And what I'm going to do is I'm going to push a core in
into the bottom of Whipple Dam and pull out some sediment.
This is a very quiet environment, and so we can
preserve individual layers.
And what I'm going to do is show you two layers in the
sediment, the sandy layer and the muddy layer at the bottom
of this core.
And you could see how we can determine proxy records from
this lake deposit.
Now in this module, we'll be talking about the hockey
stick, and the hockey stick was derived from both
instrumental records from about 1900 or so and proxy
records going further back than this.
We wouldn't be using this type of a lake sediment in the
proxy part of the hockey stick.
But you can see how cores are taken, and you'll be learning
a lot more about the proxy and the instrumental records in
module two.
So you can get busy now.