Greg Wiles Receives Grant to Continue Research on Global Climate Change

Associate professor of geology at The College of Wooster one of three collaborators to receive grant

WOOSTER, Ohio - Greg Wiles, associate professor of geology at The College of Wooster, has received a $93,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to continue his research on global climate change. He will work collaboratively with the U.S. Army, Columbia University, and the National Park Service to reconstruct North Pacific climate variability through multi-millennial tree-ring research in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve in Alaska.

"The ice has receded some 120 kilometers in this region and exposed thousands of logs that can be incorporated into tree-ring chronologies, extending our record of climate variability back multiple thousands of years," said Wiles. "It's conceivable that we could eventually go back 10,000 years, which would give us a much more complete record of temperature variability."

Glacier Bay, a fjord complex along the Gulf of Alaska is a climatically sensitive region according to Wiles. "Our existing multi-species database of tree-ring chronologies for the Gulf of Alaska and now for Glacier Bay and vicinity closely tracks sea-surface temperatures and other ocean-atmosphere phenomena that is critical to the global climate system," he said. "The tree-ring dating of these ancient forests will add calendar-dated detail to the glacial history of this dynamic tidewater glacier system, and the resulting ring data will provide an independent record of North Pacific variability."

The climate studies and glacial histories will enable Wiles and fellow researchers to test specific hypotheses about North Pacific climate variability and help to put the dramatic contemporary ice retreat in Glacier Bay into a long-term context.

The grant will also provide support for student researchers to assist in the process and gather data for their Independent Study project (Wooster's nationally acclaimed senior capstone project, which matches a student with a faculty mentor in a yearlong research project that culminates in a graduate-level thesis, performance, or exhibition). Eight students will have an opportunity to conduct undergraduate research through this grant.