Nebraska Professor's Research Aims to Better Understand Climate Change from the Past, For the Future

A University of Nebraska-Lincoln professor of atmospheric sciences is starting research that could provide insight on how climate change has evolved over the years.

Ross Secord will study isotopes in the teeth and bone structures of mammals from 52 million year-old fossils. This was the warmest period of time in the last 70 million years.

Secord said looking at the fossils from the Wyoming region, which has a large fossil deposit from this time period, can show changes in the ecosystem.

“The bigger picture [is] looking at whether or not diets changed in the mammals who were around at the time, or whether the type of locomotion they used changed,” he said. “In other words, were they living up in the trees? Were they living on the ground?”

Diet changes can reveal how vegetation changed. Secord said this can indicate how wet or dry the weather was at the time.

Secord said his research aims to study mammals behavior relating to the climate.

“...to gain a better understanding of the response to the biotic community, both mammals and plants, how they responded to warming at this interval of time in the past,” he said.

The professor said this can help people gain a better understanding of how to respond to current changes in climate. Another objective in his study is helping build climate models for the future.

Secord is collaborating with professors from three Universities in the northeast United States for this study. The work is made possible from a $350,000 grant from the National Science Foundation.