Meighan Boyd

Climate model benchmarking with glacial and mid-Holocene climates

Abstract Past climates provide a test of models’ ability to predict climate change. We present a comprehensive evaluation of state-of-the-art models against Last Glacial Maximum and mid-Holocene climates, using reconstructions of land and ocean climates and simulations from the Palaeoclimate Modelling and Coupled Modelling Intercomparison Projects. Newer models do not perform better than earlier versions despite higher resolution and complexity. Differences in climate sensitivity only weakly account for differences in model performance. In the glacial, models consistently underestimate land cooling (especially in winter) and overestimate ocean surface cooling (especially in the tropics). In the mid-Holocene, models generally underestimate the precipitation increase in the northern monsoon regions, and overestimate summer warming in central Eurasia. Models generally capture large-scale gradients of climate change but have more limited ability to reproduce spatial patterns. Despite these common biases, some models perform better than others.

Can XRF scanning of speleothems be used as a non-destructive method to identify paleoflood events in caves?

We have developed a novel, quick and non-destructive method for tracing flood events in caves through the analysis of a stalagmite thick section with an XRF core scanner. The analyzed stalagmite ha ...

Late Bronze Age climate change and the destruction of the Mycenaean Palace of Nestor at Pylos

This paper offers new high-resolution oxygen and carbon isotope data from Stalagmite S1 from Mavri Trypa Cave, SW Peloponnese. Our data provide the climate background to the destruction of the nearby Mycenaean Palace of Nestor at Pylos at the transition from Late Helladic (LH) IIIB to LH IIIC, ~3150–3130 years before present (before AD 1950, hereafter yrs BP) and the subsequent period. S1 is dated by 24 U-Th dates with an averaged precision of ±26 yrs (2σ), providing one of the most robust paleoclimate records from the eastern Mediterranean for the end of the Late Bronze Age (LBA). The δ18O record shows generally wetter conditions at the time when the Palace of Nestor at Pylos was destroyed, but a brief period of drier conditions around 3200 yrs BP may have disrupted the Mycenaean agricultural system that at the time was likely operating close to its limit. Gradually developing aridity after 3150 yrs BP, i.e. subsequent to the destruction, probably reduced crop yields and helped to erode the basis for the reinstitution of a central authority and the Palace itself.

Exploring the importance of inter-departmental women’s friendship in geography as resistance in the neoliberal academy

ABSTRACT Friendship has potential as a key coping and self-care strategy among early career researchers (ECR’s) and has been shown to be crucial to overall well-being and sense of belonging, but its importance as a response to career pressures is not well studied. For ECR’s, friendships within the university are situated in a specific structural and institutional context, and formigrant women, this includes an additional aspect of gendered complexity. At the same time friendships may prove difficult as heightened neoliberal metrics emphasize competition forfunding, positions and teaching requirements. Using autoethnographic intra-reflections on the authors’ own friendship, bridging human geography and physical geography, this paper examines friendship of two ECR women from a homosocial perspective where institutional hierarchies and structures may be somewhat equalized. Drawing on the exploration of the authors’ friendship during their PhD years and into their post-doc positions, we reflect on the importance of friendship as an act of support, self-care and resistance. We argue for heightening importance for examining the way friendship creates safe social spaces and offer new insights into the importance of friendships in career paths. Friendship in the neoliberal academy has transformative potential for creating a culture of well-being in geography.