My research focuses on ocean sediments that contain diverse indicators of Earth’s climate change over time scales ranging from thousands to tens of millions of years. Examples include records of regional aridity (windblown desert dust), oceanic productivity (fluxes of calcareous and siliceous planktonic organisms), and ice volume and temperature (stable-isotopic measurements). In addition, through co-operative experiments using numerical models of the earth’s atmospheric and oceanic circulation, we devise and test hypotheses about the driving forces behind climatic changes, both longer-term tectonic changes (uplift of plateaus) and shorter-term variations in the earth-sun geometry (”orbital” changes).

Selected Recent Publications

Ruddiman, W.F. and J.S. Thomson. 2001. The case for human causes of increased atmospheric CH4 over the last 5000 years. Quaternary Science Reviews 20:1769-1777.

Ruddiman, W.F. and J.E. Kutzbach. 1991. Plateau Uplift and Climate Change. Scientific American 264:66-74.

Kutzbach, J.E., Prell,W.L. and Ruddiman,W.F. 1993. Sensitivity of Eurasian climate to uplift of the Tibetan Plateau, Journal of Geology 101:177-190.

Verardo, D.J. and Ruddiman, W.F., 1996. Late Quaternary Charcoal burial in Tropial Atlantic Sediments, Geology 54:855-857.

Ruddiman, W.F., 1997. Tropical Atlantic Tarrigenous Fluxes since 25,000 yrs. B.P. Marine Geology, 136:189-206.

Ruddiman, W.F., (editor), 1997. Tectonic Uplift and Climate Change, Plenum Press, N.Y.