The exchange of carbon on earth is one of the fundamental processes that sustains life and regulates climate. Since the onset of the Industrial Revolution, the burning of fossil fuels and anthropogenic land conversion have altered the carbon cycle, increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to levels that are unprecedented...
The three studies that comprise this dissertation seek to answer significant
questions in paleoclimatology through unconventional applications of ice core
greenhouse gas data. These studies involve different gases and span the interval of time
between the Last Glacial Maximum and the Industrial Revolution, but are united by their
nontraditional use...
Nitrous oxide is an important greenhouse gas that has both natural and anthropogenic sources in the modern atmosphere (Ciais et al., 2013). This project expanded the knowledge of the history of atmospheric N2O in the geologic past by measuring N2O concentrations in air trapped in very old polar ice. A...