BioGeoSciences Laboratory

The Biogeosciences Laboratory studies how climate and the environment are changing in Peru and around the world, and how this variability affects and determines biodiversity over a wide range of time scales. In particular, we reconstruct past changes in the El Niño phenomenon and the Humboldt system over scales ranging from centuries to millions of years. We study the evolution of coastal and Amazonian ecosystems. We evaluate carbon flows in coastal, Andean, and Amazonian wetlands and their potential to mitigate CO2 emissions. Human-induced climate change poses an immense risk to Peru's ecosystems and socioeconomic sustainability. To address this, we must understand how the coastal oceanographic system works, long-scale climate variability, its controlling factors, and its relationship with all components of the Earth.