Maureen E. Raymo | |
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![]() Maureen Raymo | |
Born | |
Alma mater |
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Awards | Wollaston Medal, Milutin Milankovic Medal, Maurice Ewing Medal |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Climate Scientist and Marine Geologist |
Institutions |
Maureen E. Raymo (born 1959) is an American paleoclimatologist and marine geologist. She is the Co-Founding Dean Emerita of the Columbia Climate School [1] and the G. Unger Vetlesen Professor of Earth & Environmental Sciences at Columbia University. From 2011 to 2022, she was also Director of Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory's (LDEO) Core Repository and, until 2024, was the Founding Director of the LDEO Hudson River Field Station. [2] From 2020 to 2023, she was first Interim Director then Director of Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, the first climate scientist and first female scientist to head the institution. [3]
Raymo has done pioneering work on the origin of the ice ages, the geologic temperature record of the Earth, and past sea level change, publishing over 100 peer-reviewed scientific articles. Her work underlies fundamental ideas in paleoceanography including the uplift weathering hypothesis, the "41,000-year problem," the Pliocene sea-level paradox, and the Lisiecki-Raymo δ18O stack. [4] [5] [6] [7]
Raymo was born in Los Angeles, [8] and at age eight sailed with her family to Europe on the ocean liner S.S. United States and resolved to dedicate her life to studying the ocean. The books and films of Jacques Cousteau were also important early influences. [9] Raymo attended Oliver Ames High School in Easton, Massachusetts, where she graduated with the Bausch and Lomb Honorary Science Award, and then attended Brown University, receiving her Sc.B. Geology in 1982. After a brief stint working in a lab, she then attended Columbia University, where she earned her M.A. in geological sciences in 1985, M.Phil. in geology in 1988, and Ph.D. in geology in 1989. [8]
Raymo is known for developing (with William Ruddiman and Philip Froelich) the Uplift-Weathering Hypothesis. [10] [11] According to this hypothesis, tectonic uplift of areas such as the Himalayas and Tibetan plateau over the last 40 million years enhanced the chemical weathering of minerals, which removed carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and resulted in cooling that spurred the growth of large ice sheets. Over 35 years later, the hypothesis continues to be actively researched. [12] [13] [14] [15] Their proposed mechanism of CO2 removal, the chemical weathering of rock, also now underpins projects to sequester anthropogenic CO2 via artificially enhanced chemical weathering. [16]
Raymo is known for her research using deep sea cores to better understand past oceanic thermohaline circulation, as well as how Earth's Milankovitch cycles influenced ice age pacing over the Pleistocene and Pliocene. [18] Raymo's Anti-phase Hypothesis [19] explains the 41,000 year pacing of Earth's climate cycles from 3 to 1 million years ago as due to the out-of-phase response of the polar ice sheets to orbital precession.
Raymo has also advanced stratigraphy and dating of the past via oxygen isotope analysis of foraminifera from deep ocean sediments. This included publishing the first continuous oxygen isotope stratigraphy and time scale of the northern hemisphere ice ages from DSDP Site 607. [20] [21] In 2005, with her post-doc Lorraine Lisiecki, Raymo published the widely adopted 5-million-year LR04 benthic isotope stack, which remains the benchmark against which most Plio-Pleistocene studies are measured. [22]
In 1996, Raymo used carbon isotopes of marine organic matter to produce the first paleo-CO2 estimate for the Middle Pliocene Warm Period [23] , a time when global temperatures were about 2-3 °C above preindustrial levels. Their CO2 estimate, between 350 and 400 ppm, later inspired the name of the activist organization 350.org [24] which advocates for a return to 350 ppm as a safe level of atmospheric carbon dioxide.
Raymo has led or coauthored numerous influential studies on sea level. During the PLIOMAX project [25] , Raymo and her colleagues examined how polar ice sheets evolved during past warm periods that are close analogues for modern warming. The first PLIOMAX paper showed how to correct ancient shorelines for glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA, [26] ) and identified this process as one of the reasons for the Pliocene sea level paradox—namely the different elevations of Pliocene shorelines around the globe. Next, Raymo and Jerry X. Mitrovica focused on the Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 11 interglacial, merging relative sea level indicators with glacial isostatic adjustment models to show that global mean sea level during MIS-11 reached 6-13 meters above present during the second half of the interglacial [27] . Raymo then coauthored a series of papers based on field work on four continents that showed that Pliocene shorelines can help constrain the magnitude of dynamic topography (DT) over millions of years [28] [29] [30] . Numerical simulations of glacial isostatic adjustment, mantle convection, and ice sheet evolution supported these findings [31] [32] [33] [34] [35] [36] [37] [38] [39] . Raymo and colleagues conducted similarly thorough field- and modeling-based studies for the Last Interglacial (MIS-5e), the most recent time when global mean sea level was substantial higher than present [40] [41] [42] . Together, these constraints on past sea level were used to calibrate the physics underpinning ice sheet simulations of the future Antarctic response to warming [43] [44] . More recent work by Raymo and colleagues continues to refine estimates of Plio-Pleistocene sea level [45] [46] [47] and ice sheet evolution [48] and explore the implications for future climate projections [49] .
In 2002, she was named one of the 50 most important women in science by Discover [50] [51] magazine. In her nomination for the Wollaston Medal, Professor James Scourse described her as "one of the foremost and influential figures in the last 30 years...She's been an important role model to women scientists—you can get to the top. " [52] . Following this, in 2003 she became a fellow of John Simons. [53]
In 2014, Raymo became the first woman in 183 years to win the prestigious Wollaston Medal - the highest award of the Geological Society of London. [52] [54] She also received the 2014 Milutin Milankovic Medal [55] [51] at the European Geosciences Union’s annual meeting for her use of geochemistry, geology and geophysics to solve paleoclimatology’s big problems. [56] In 2016 she was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences. [51] , and in 2017 became a fellow of the Explorers Club and received Honoris Causa from the University of Lancaster. [51] In 2019 she was awarded the Maurice Ewing Medal by the American Geophysical Union. [57] Raymo is a fellow of the American Geophysical Union and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2022 she was elected as a Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Class for Geosciences. [51]
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