USC Climate Change Research Group
We currently have openings for two PhD students. If you are interested in the research we are conducting or are considering postdoctoral research opportunities, please contact Dr. Lowell Stott.
My research seeks to gain a better understanding of Earth’s natural climate variability and the reasons for that variability.
My teaching seeks to convey that understanding to students so they can use that knowledge to make informed decisions about their future and about the global environment.
Current Research
One of the grand challenges in climate science is to understand what has controlled natural variations in atmospheric CO2 during some of Earth’s greatest climate changes, the glacial/interglacial cycles of the past 2.5 million years. There are new and evolving lines of evidence indicating that geological sources of carbon have “leaked” into the environment periodically and disrupted the carbon cycle, adding excess CO2 to the atmosphere and promoting global warming. Our team at USC is investigating how and why these geologic carbon reservoirs have leaked. It is important to understand these processes not only to understand why the Earth experienced large climatic changes in the past but also to understand how these reservoirs could leak excess carbon in the future.