Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
poles warmed up a lot—a mystery that is still unsolved today, though some intriguing hypotheses have
been proposed.
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I spent most of my waking hours that summer of 1991 reading climate science textbooks and
papers and soaking up all the knowledge I could about the field of climate research. With the
beginning of the fall term, I switched into the Department of Geology and Geophysics, and I went on
to take an additional two years of coursework to acquire knowledge in a whole new range of
subjects, including fluid dynamics, meteorology, oceanography, climate dynamics, and statistical
analysis methods. After passing yet another set of exams, I finally was ready to pursue Ph.D. research
with Barry. I had no idea where my seemingly random scientific path would end up taking me, though
much of the focus in the field of climate research at the time had to do with two central topics: natural
climate variability and human-caused climate change. It was therefore likely that I would end up
doing research related to one of these topics.
