Climate Extremes and our Coastlines

With rising sea levels and projected increases in tropical cyclone intensity and precipitation, coastal communities are more vulnerable to storm-induced inundation. Extreme events occur infrequently, and most historical records of extreme events are short and biased. Our research uses geological perspectives to better evaluate the mechanisms that determine the location, intensity, and frequency of storms and floods. We develop sedimentary reconstructions of climate extremes over hundreds to thousands of years and integrate these reconstructions with state-of-the-art global climate models.