Donghao Li

Tropical Atlantic-Pacific hydroclimate, variability and teleconnections during the Last Interglacial and the Holocene - Insights from  Earth-system modelling and corals

The tropics are of crucial importance when it comes to understanding and predicting climate patterns worldwide, acting as a driving component in global climate dynamics. This project aims to shed light on tropical climate dynamics with a particular focus on the interplay between the mean state, the annual cycle (seasonality), and the interannual variability in the tropical Atlantic and Pacific as well as the teleconnections between the two ocean basins under warmer climate conditions through earth-system modeling and corals. The project is embedded into the multidisciplinary DFG Priority Programme “Tropical Climate Variability & Coral Reefs” (SPP2299).

The major part of this PhD project consists in conducting simulations using the water- and carbon-isotope enabled version of the Community Earth System Model (iCESM v1.2.2) for the last interglacial and the Holocene. These simulations will be flanked by comparisons of model results with proxy records from fossil corals.

The combination of model sensitivity experiments with the analysis of coral proxy records will help to investigate mechanisms of tropical hydroclimate, variability, and teleconnections during past warm periods and will put the signals from fossil coral records at particular sites into a larger-scale perspective. By addressing these aspects, the project intends to contribute to a more detailed understanding of tropical climate dynamics and help reduce uncertainties in projecting the future evolution of the tropics under anthropogenic climate change.