There were plenty of tedious moments over the many years Kim Cobb spent studying what fossil coral data can reveal about the Earth’s climate. And her graduate adviser, Miriam Kastner, was never shy about rubbing it in.
“[She] was famous for saying that a monkey could do my thesis, by which she meant that it was quite repetitive work,” said Cobb, now an associate professor in Georgia Tech’s School of Atmospheric Sciences. “I would retort that it would require a very dedicated monkey.”
Cobb’s dedication finally has paid off. Her research findings could have a major impact on the understanding of the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), a Pacific Ocean climate cycle that affects climates worldwide.
What Cobb and her team discovered fits with many climatologists’ expectations of ENSO activity from thousands of years in the past, but the more recent indications are what have surprised many.
“There was a very large segment of climate scientists who expected us to find a significant reduction in El Nino activity 6,000 years ago,” Cobb said. “On the other hand, I was shocked—as were most of my colleagues—to see that our new coral dataset reflects much weaker El Nino activity than that documented during the 20th century. This is a statistically significant difference and suggests that current climate change caused by rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels may be associated with an increase in El Nino activity.”
Now that Cobb has her own team of graduate students, she uses her experience to show them that all of the tedium and hard work can lead to a significant real-world impact.
“Students love it when I bring my research into the classroom,” Cobb said. “I usually start with some exciting field stories, complete with incredible photos, and then use our data to talk about climate change and its uncertainties. What do we know about past climate change? How are past climate changes different than today?”
Let’s see a monkey, dedicated or otherwise, pull that off.
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