Carol Rifelj Lecture Series - Past Rainfall and Wildfire Patterns in the Western US

Cameron de Wet, Earth & Climate Science   Past Rainfall and Wildfire Patterns in the Western US: New Perspectives from Caves and Climate Models Anthropogenic activities are pushing the climate system toward a new, warmer state that is outside the bounds of what human societies have experienced. The warming climate is driving changes in rainfall and wildfire patterns across the western US, but how these dynamics will continue to evolve remains uncertain. Geologic archives and climate models provide a key, longer-term perspective here, offering insight into the interplay between rainfall and wildfire across a variety of background climate states. This talk will describe recent efforts to use new types of data from cave systems and climate model simulations to explore how rainfall patterns and wildfire dynamics change over longer-than-human timescales, with an eye toward how they will continue change in the future.