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Yarrow Axford

Associate Professor, Director of Graduate Admissions & Recruitment

Ph.D. University of Colorado, Dept. of Geological Sciences
M.S. Utah State University, Dept. of Geology
A.B. Mount Holyoke College, Dept. of Geology
Curriculum Vitae

Research

I study climate and environmental change, primarily through the lens of paleolimnology (the study of lake sediments and past lake environments). My work is aimed at understanding climate change and glacier fluctuations in Arctic and alpine environments, most recently around the margins of the Greenland Ice Sheet. Much of my research has focused on the Holocene (the last 11,000 years of Earth's history), but I study timescales ranging from the Pliocene to the present.

Teaching

EARTH 102: Global Warming: The Scientific Evidence 
EARTH 341: Quaternary Climate Change: Ice Ages to the Age of Oil
EARTH 342 / ISEN 410: Energy and Climate Change
EARTH 450: Arctic Environments
EARTH 451: Paleoclimate Perspectives on Future Climate Change
EARTH 450/ISEN 495: Communicating Science Beyond Academia

Selected Publications

Larocca, L., and Axford, Y. 2022. Arctic glaciers and ice caps through the Holocene: a circumpolar synthesis of lake-based reconstructions. Climate of the Past 18, 579–606.

Otto-Bliesner, B.L., Brady, E.C., Zhao, A., Brierley, C., Axford, Y., and 32 others. 2021. Large-scale features of Last Interglacial climate: results from evaluating the lig127k simulations for the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6)–Paleoclimate Modeling Intercomparison Project (PMIP4). Climate of the Past 17, 63-94.

Axford, Y., de Vernal, A., and Osterberg, E.C. 2021. Past warmth and its impacts in Greenland during the Holocene Thermal Maximum. Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences 49, 279–307.

Dion-Kirschner, H., McFarlin, J.M., Masterson, A., Axford, Y., and Osburn, M.R. 2020. Modern constraints on the sources and climate signals recorded by plant waxes in west Greenland. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 286, 336–354.

Puleo, P.J.K., Axford, Y., McFarlin, J.M., Curry, B.B., Barklage, M., and Osburn, M.R. 2020. Late glacial and Holocene paleoenvironments in the midcontinent United States, inferred from Geneva Lake leaf wax, ostracode valve, and bulk sediment chemistry. Quaternary Science Reviews 241, 106384.

McFarlin, J.M., Axford, Y., Masterson, A., and Osburn, M.R. 2019. Calibration of modern sedimentary δ2H plant wax-water relationships in Greenland lakes. Quaternary Science Reviews 225, 105978.
Lasher, G.E., and Axford, Y. 2019. Medieval warmth confirmed at the Norse Eastern Settlement in Greenland. Geology 47, 267-270.

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