Lorraine Lisiecki

Assistant Professor
Department of Earth Science
University of California, Santa Barbara
lisiecki AT geol.ucsb.edu

Opportunities available for graduate, undergraduate, and postdoctoral research.

Please contact me for more information. Potential projects:

Job ad for Quantitative Paleoclimate Postdoc
Reconstruct climate and ocean change over the last glacial cycle
3D visualization of paleoclimate data
Model ice volume changes in response to orbital forcing
Estimate age uncertainty in paleoclimate records
Study climate changes over the last 3 million years

Research Interests

My research focuses on computational approaches to the interpretation of paleoclimate records. I believe that the integrated analysis of widely distributed paleoclimate records will yield important information about the climate system that cannot be obtained by studying these records individually. I am particularly interested in the evolution of Plio-Pleistocene climate as it relates to Milankovitch forcing, 100-kyr glacial cycles, and deep-ocean circulation. I also develop and distribute software related to age model development and stratigraphy. The analytical techniques I use most frequently are stratigraphic correlation, simple physical models, dynamic programming, and mathematical tools such as time series analysis, principal component analysis, and computational probability and statistics.

What does this mean? Simple, non-technical explanations of what I study and why. Also, PowerPoint slides for teachers.

Data & Software

Match & Autocomp Software [Lisiecki and Lisiecki, 2002]
LR04 Benthic Stack [Lisiecki and Raymo, 2005]

Curriculum Vitae

Awards

Subaru Outstanding Woman in Science Award, Geological Society of America, 2008
Editors' Citation for Excellence in Refereeing for Paleoceanography, 2008
Joukowsky Outstanding Dissertation Award, 2005

Publications

Imbrie, J. Z., A. Imbrie-Moore, and L. E. Lisiecki (2011), A phase-space model for Pleistocene ice volume, Earth and Planetary Science Letters. 307, 94-102.
Lisiecki, L. E. (2010c), A benthic d13C-based proxy for atmospheric pCO2 over the last 1.5 Myr, Geophys. Res. Lett., 37, L21708, doi:10.1029/2010GL045109.
Lisiecki, L. E. (2010b), A simple mixing explanation for late Pleistocene changes in the Pacific-South Atlantic benthic d13C gradient, Clim. Past, 6, 305-314. PDF
Lisiecki, L. E. (2010a), Links between eccentricity forcing and the 100,000-year glacial cycle, Nature Geoscience, 3, 349-352. Link

Author's Note: I have received many emails about this article asking me what current climate changes should be expected based on orbital forcing. Orbital forcing cannot be used to explain climate changes on a scale of 100 or even 1000 years. The natural response that would be expected is a very gradual cooling trend over the next 90,000 years or so. However, it is uncertain whether this cooling trend would be expected to start thousands of years ago (e.g., Ruddiman) or thousands of years in the future.
Lisiecki, L. E., and M. E. Raymo (2009), Diachronous benthic d18O responses during late Pleistocene terminations, Paleoceanography 24, PA3210, doi:10.1029/2009PA001732. Link
Lisiecki, L. E., M. E. Raymo, and W. B. Curry (2008), Atlantic overturning responses to Late Pleistocene climate forcings, Nature 456, 85-88. Link to PDF
Lisiecki, L. E., and T. D. Herbert (2007), Automated composite depth scale construction and estimates of sediment core extension, Paleoceanography, 22, PA4213, doi:10.1029/2006PA001401. PDF, Appendix 1: Detailed Methodology, and Appendix 2: Technical Modifications to LL02
Kawamura, K., F. Parrenin, L. Lisiecki, R. Uemura, F. Vimeux, J. P. Severinghaus, M. A. Hutterli, T. Nakazawa, S. Aoki, J. Jouzel, M. E. Raymo, K. Matsumoto, H. Nakata, H. Motoyama, S. Fujita, K. Goto-Azuma, Y. Fujii, and O. Watanabe, 2007, Northern Hemisphere forcing of climatic cycles in Antarctica over the past 360,000 years, Nature, v. 448, p. 912-917, doi:10.1038/nature06015.
Lisiecki, L. E., and M. E. Raymo (2007), Plio-Pleistocene climate evolution: Trends and transitions in glacial cycle dynamics, Quaternary Science Reviews, 26, 56-69. View PDF
Raymo, M. E., L. E. Lisiecki, and K. H. Nisancioglu (2006), Plio-Pleistocene ice volume, Antarctic climate, and the global d¹⁸O record, Science, doi: 10.1126/science.1123296. PDF
Lisiecki, L. E., and M. E. Raymo (2005), A Pliocene-Pleistocene stack of 57 globally distributed benthic d¹⁸O records, Paleoceanography, 20, PA1003, doi:10.1029/2004PA001071. View PDF
Lisiecki, L. E., and P. A. Lisiecki (2002), Application of dynamic programming to the correlation of paleoclimate records, Paleoceanography, 17(D4), 1049, doi:10.1029/2001PA000733. View PDF

Dissertation

Title: Paleoclimate time series: New alignment and compositing techniques, a 5.3-Myr benthic d¹⁸O stack, and analysis of Pliocene-Plesitocene climate transitions

Advisor: Prof. Timothy Herbert, Brown University

Summary and Excerpts