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Tom Marchitto

Research
Scientist of INSTAAR; Assistant Professor of Geological Sciences, Univ.
of Colorado at Boulder.
PhD, MIT/WHOI Joint Program, 1999.
Tom.Marchitto@colorado.edu
(303) 492-7739
INSTAAR Directorate
Members
Specialty: Quaternary paleoclimate, paleoceanography,
and past ocean chemistry.
Research Interests: An understanding of the
modes and mechanisms of past climate variability is
a vital prerequisite for understanding our current
and future climate. I am mainly interested in paleoceanography,
specifically large-scale changes in ocean circulation
and chemistry that occur over millennial (and shorter)
timescales. Most of my work has focused on the last
full glacial-interglacial cycle, spanning roughly the
past 130,000 years. Major variations in ocean circulation,
from abyssal depths to the surface, are believed to
have strongly influenced climate via the transport
of heat. The oceans also exert control over atmospheric
levels of carbon dioxide, an important "greenhouse" gas.
Such changes are reflected in the physical and chemical
properties of seawater, including temperature, salinity,
the isotopic composition of dissolved inorganic carbon,
and the concentrations of various nutrients. We use
the calcitic shells of protozoa called foraminifera
as recorders of these properties. By analyzing and
dating sediment cores that contain foraminifera, we
can reconstruct ocean chemistry and inferred circulation
patterns during the past.
Selected Publications:
- Bryan, S. P., and T. M. Marchitto, 2008, The Mg/Ca - temperature proxy in benthic foraminifera: New calibrations from the Florida Straits and a hypothesis regarding Mg/Li, Paleoceanography, 23(2), PA2220, doi:10.1029/2007PA001553, 2008.
- Marchitto, T. M., S. J. Lehman, J. D. Ortiz, J. Flückiger, and A. van Geen, 2007, Marine radiocarbon evidence for the mechanism of deglacial atmospheric CO2 rise, Science, 316, 1456-1459, 2007.
- Marchitto, T. M., and W. S. Broecker, 2006, Deep water mass geometry in the glacial Atlantic Ocean: A review of constraints from the paleonutrient proxy Cd/Ca, Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems, 7(12), Q12003, doi:10.1029/2006GC001323, 2006.
- Marchitto, T. M., J. Lynch-Stieglitz, and S. R. Hemming, 2005, Deep Pacific CaCO3 compensation and glacial-interglacial atmospheric CO2, Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 231, 317-336, 2005.
- Marchitto, T. M., D. W. Oppo, and W. B. Curry, 2002, Paired benthic foraminiferal Cd/Ca and Zn/Ca evidence for a greatly increased presence of Southern Ocean Water in the glacial North Atlantic, Paleoceanography, 17(3), 1038, doi:10.1029/2000PA000598, 2002.
- Koutavas, A., J. Lynch-Stieglitz, T. M. Marchitto, and J. P. Sachs, 2002, El Niño-like pattern in Ice Age tropical Pacific sea surface temperature, Science, 297, 226-230, 2002.
- Marchitto, T. M., W. B. Curry, and D. W. Oppo, 1998, Millennial-scale changes in North Atlantic circulation since the last glaciation, Nature, 393, 557-561, 1998.
See Also:

http://instaar.colorado.edu/people/bios/marchitto.html
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