Welcome PhD student Madeleine Santos

Her PhD will focus on reconciling climate models with proxy data from the Miocene, a period of extreme greenhouse conditions. In this project, she will develop proxy system sensor models (PSMs) for temperature and CO2 proxies derived from coccolithophorids, integrating them with independent proxies and paleoclimate model outputs. This research is crucial because accurate proxy interpretations could reveal that current climate models underestimate polar amplification and climate sensitivity. By aligning past models with data, she hopes to enhance the credibility of future climate predictions and improve paleoclimate reconstructions using validated, accessible proxy models.