Figure 1. Title page of Amanda’s thesis including one of the key figures.
Amanda Flory (class of 2025) completed a thesis that investigated the interplay between the pace of the ocean-atmosphere climate in the Northeast Pacific that is dominated by Pacific Decadal Variability along with the volcanically-forced coolings inferred from tree-ring records. Her title page (above) summarizes the results with several known volcanic intervals linked with decade-long coolings. These coolings are inferred from a tree ring-width series located in coastal Southeast Alaska (Dude Mountain, Ketchikan, Alaska). In addition to her thesis work Amanda presented her results at the meeting of the Geological Society of America in the Spring of 2025. The take-home here is that the variability as recorded in the tree-ring record appears to be a combination internal variability of the Northeast Pacific [1] and volcanic forcing [2] contributing to the decadal variability in the climate.
Figure 2. The author (left) cores a yellow cedar (Cupressus nootkatensis) – Nick (middle) and Proto provide support.
Figure 3. Comparisons of Sitka, AK temperature records for the months of December through October of the growth year correlated with the Dude Mountain ring-width record.
This climate/tree-ring comparison (Figure 2) examines the moving correlation over time (since