Robert Kopp

Abrupt sedimentary changes mark the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) in the mid-Atlantic Coastal Plain. Across the tectonic downwarp known as the Salisbury Embayment (southeastern Virginia to central New Jersey), kaolinite-rich clay (the Marlboro Clay) abruptly replaces glauconite-rich quartz sand, silt, and illite-smectite clay of the late Paleocene. Dozens of cored boreholes obtained by the USGS and other Federal and State agencies, together with geophysical logs from more than 100 boreholes, allow us to document the widespread distribution and depositional, biostratigraphic, paleoecologic, taphonomic, and tectonic characteristics of the Marlboro Clay. In Maryland and Virginia, the Marlboro Clay is a silvery-gray to pale-red plastic clay and locally includes thin laminations and thicker beds of silt, concretions, pyrite nodules, and rare shell fragments (in downdip cores). The clay is unconformity bounded with highly burrowed contacts. The lower contact is locally so biotur...

The timing and rate of Earth's Great Oxygenation Event (sometime between 2.7 and 2.2 billion years ago) and the origin of vertical redox gradients in sedimentary and water columns are currently in dispute. Magnetotactic bacteria today most commonly inhabit oxic-anoxic transition zones in freshwater and marine systems. Hence, the presence or absence of their fossilized magnetite precipitates may be used as an indicator of paleo-redox conditions. Using conventional rock magnetic techniques, ferromagnetic resonance (FMR) spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, and electron microscopy, we screened late Archean material from a ~1.33 km Agouron-Griqualand Paleoproterozoic Drilling Project (AGPDP) core for the presence of microbial magnetofossils. Of all facies, only the magnetic and FMR properties of sideritic cherts from the Kuruman and Nagua formations somewhat resemble typical magnetofossil signatures. However, most evidence for magnetite in these samples is also associated with trace or...

We report the discovery of exceptionally large biogenic magnetite crystals in clay-rich sediments spanning the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) in a borehole at Ancora, NJ. Aside from previously described abundant bacterial magnetofossils, electron microscopy reveals novel spearhead-like and spindle-like magnetite up to 4 microm long and hexaoctahedral prisms up to 1.4 microm long. Similar to magnetite produced by magnetotactic bacteria, these single-crystal particles exhibit chemical composition, lattice perfection, and oxygen isotopes consistent with an aquatic origin. Electron holography indicates single-domain magnetization despite their large crystal size. We suggest that the development of a thick suboxic zone with high iron bioavailability--a product of dramatic changes in weathering and sedimentation patterns driven by severe global warming--drove diversification of magnetite-forming organisms, likely including eukaryotes.

Ferromagnetic resonance (FMR) spectroscopy detected a magnetofossil spike in Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) kaolinitic siltstone of New Jersey's Atlantic Coastal Plain, confirmed by two independent TEM studies and consistent with (but not required by) data from conventional rock magnetic analyses [1,2]. Applying first-order reversal curve (FORC) analysis to the same sediments demonstrates for the first time that ancient magnetofossils bear a FORC signature similar to that of both cultured and environmental magnetotactic bacteria. In order to test whether the observed PETM magnetofossil enrichment was a local or global phenomenon, we compare multi-proxy enviromagnetic profiles through the Atlantic Coastal Plain clay and present new FMR and rock-magnetic stratigraphies through other Paleocene-Eocene boundary sections. Our analyses of samples from the Paleocene-Eocene GSSP at Dababiya, Egypt, indicate the presence of a positive anisotropic, medium- to-high coercivity ferro...

We report the discovery of new forms of magnetic particles in the Paleocene-Eocene (P-E) boundary clay from the borehole at Ancora, New Jersey (Ocean Drilling Program Leg 174AX). The P-E boundary clay shows anomalous magnetic properties suggesting enrichment in single-domain (SD) magnetite. Transmission electron microscopy of the magnetic separates shows that the majority of the SD particles are magnetofossils of known crystal shape and size [1]. There are, however, larger magnetite particles having unusual morphology, including: (1) elongated prismatic magnetite of 100 nm width and up to 1 micron length, (2) leaflike magnetite particles up to 2 microns in length, and (3) elongated, conelike particles with an aspect ratio of 4:1. Lattice-fringe images and X-ray microanalysis of these particles show single-crystal structure and stochiometric magnetite composition, similar to magnetite crystals produced by magnetotactic bacteria. Although the dimensions of some of the type 2 and type ...

The most ethically problematic experiments in geoengineering are regional or global trials of solar radiation management (SRM) technologies. Because of their potential wide-spread impacts, if trials are to be conducted, international oversight is necessary to assure they are conducted ethically. The three main questions to ask about any (constellation of) institution(s) that would oversee SRM trials are: (1) Is it conducive to good science? (2) Is it politically effective? (3) Is it politically legitimate? We sketch a proposal for an international body that would regulate SRM trials in such a way as to promote an affirmative answer to all three questions.

ABSTRACT We explore the implications of alternative pathways for human population and economic development for the role of Asia in both reference, no-climate-policy, scenarios and scenarios in which climate forcing is limited. We consider three different reference scenarios, which we refer to as Shared Socio-ecosystem Pathways (SSPs) and four different levels of limitation on climate forcing, which we refer to as Shared Policy Assumptions (SPAs). SSPs are differentiated by population and economic growth assumptions, while SPAs are differentiated on the level of radiative forcing in the year 2100. Regardless of the scenarios we examined Asia plays a central role in shaping the world’s future with nearly half of the world’s people and more than half of the world’s economic activity and energy consumption. The future of Asian and world are dramatically different across the various combinations of SSPs and SPAs. High population worlds place significant stress on Asian resources and ecosystems. In high population SSPs the poorest members of the population face high energy and food prices and the more stringent the level of emissions mitigation, the more stress poor populations experience, though the more stringent the emissions mitigation, the larger the area of unmanaged ecosystems that are preserved.

ABSTRACT The social cost of carbon (SCC) is a monetized metric for evaluating the benefits associated with marginal reductions in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. It represents the expected welfare loss from the future damages caused by the release of one tonne of CO2 in a given year, expressed in consumption equivalent terms. It is intended to be a comprehensive measure, taking into account changes in agricultural productivity, human health risks, loss of ecosystem services and biodiversity, and the frequency and severity of flooding and storms, among other possible impacts. Estimating the SCC requires long-term modeling of global economic activity, the climate system, and the linkages between the two through anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and the effects of changing climatic conditions on economic activity and human well-being. The United States government currently uses the SCC in regulatory benefit-cost analyses to assess the welfare effects of changes in CO2 emissions. Consistent application of the SCC to federal rulemaking analyses began in 2009-2010 with the development of a set of global SCC estimates that employed three prominent integrated assessment models (IAMs) -- DICE, FUND, and PAGE. The U.S. government report identified a number of limitations associated with SCC estimates in general and its own assumptions in particular: an incomplete treatment of damages, including potential “catastrophic” impacts; uncertainty regarding the extrapolation of damage functions to high temperatures; incomplete treatment of adaptation and technological change; and the evaluation of uncertain outcomes in a risk-neutral fashion. External experts have identified other potential issues, including how best to model long-term socio-economic and emissions pathways, oversimplified physical climate and carbon cycle modeling within the IAMs, and an inconsistency between non-constant economic growth scenarios and constant discount rates. The U.S. government has committed to updating the estimates regularly as modeling capabilities and scientific and economic knowledge improves. To help foster further improvements in estimating the SCC, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy hosted a pair of workshops on “Improving the Assessment and Valuation of Climate Change Impacts for Policy and Regulatory Analysis.” The first focused on conceptual and methodological issues related to integrated assessment modeling and the second brought together natural and social scientists to explore methods for improving damage assessment for multiple sectors. These two workshops provide the basis for the 13 papers in this special issue.

ABSTRACT Although the marine magnetic anomaly record and the global paleomagnetic database for 0-200 Ma permit confident paleogeographic reconstruction for most of Cenozoic and much of Mesozoic time, there are several notable data gaps. One such underconstrained interval spans the Paleocene-Eocene boundary and its associated global change event. What high-quality recent paleomagnetic data do exist tend to contradict most published Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum paleogeographic maps by up to ~10 degrees, in a variable though globally systematic sense. When paleoclimate studies attempt to understand broad-scale global and specific regional environmental changes associated with PETM warming, such interpretations depend directly on the faithfulness of the paleomagnetic database. Specific examples of maximum and minimum sensitivity for environmental interpretations to different PETM paleomagnetic pole possibilities will be discussed.

ABSTRACT Regional sea level can deviate from mean global sea level because of both dynamic sea level (DSL) effects, resulting from oceanic and atmospheric circulation and temperature and salinity distributions, and changes in the static equilibrium (SE) sea level configuration, produced by the gravitational, elastic, and rotational effects of mass redistribution. Both effects will contribute to future sea level change, but because they are studied by two different subdisciplines -- climate modeling and glacial rebound modeling -- projections that attempt to combine both have to date been scarce. To compare their magnitude, we simulated the effects of Greenland Ice Sheet (GIS) melt by conducting idealized North Atlantic "water-hosing" experiments in a climate model unidirectionally coupled to a SE sea level model. At current rates of GIS melt, freshwater hosing experiments in fully coupled atmosphere-ocean general circulation models (AOGCMs) do not yield clear DSL trends but do generate DSL variability; comparing that variability to expected static equilibrium "fingerprints" suggests that at least about 40 years of observations are needed to detect the "fingerprints" of ice sheet melt at current Greenland melt rates of about 0.3 mm equivalent sea level (esl)/year. Accelerated melt rates of about 2--6 mm esl/y, as may occur later in the century, should be detectable above background DSL variability within less than a decade of their onset. At these higher melt rates, AOGCMs do yield clear DSL trends. In the GFDL CM 2.1 model, DSL trends are strongest in the western North Atlantic, while SE effects come to dominate in most of the ocean when melt exceeds about 20 cm esl.

ABSTRACT Modern observations of sea-level (SL) change, including tide gauge and satellite altimetry measurements, record a combination of dynamic and static equilibrium SL signals. Dynamic SL changes arise from, for example, temperature and salinity variations, air-sea interactions, ocean dynamics, and long-term tides. Static SL change refers to the equilibrium gravitational, deformational and rotational signature of ice-ocean mass redistribution. It is now widely appreciated that the rapid melting of an individual ice sheet or glacier will produce a unique geometry, or fingerprint, in static (and hence total) SL; this physics raises the possibility that a network of SL observations with sufficient geographic distribution and signal-to-noise properties may be used to move beyond estimates of a globally averaged SL change to infer the individual sources of meltwater flux into the oceans in our warming world. In practice, it may be difficult to detect the SL fingerprints in the presence of a confounding dynamic variability, particularly in records of relatively short duration. To explore this issue, we have performed a large series of detection experiments based on a suite of synthetic SL data sets. In particular, the synthetics were constructed by combining de-trended tide gauge and satellite altimetry data with sea-level fingerprints computed for a variety of Greenland Ice Sheet (GIS) and West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) melt scenarios. With these synthetics in hand, we then investigated our ability to robustly detect the two SL fingerprints by systematically varying the time span of the synthetic records, their geographic location and the relative and absolute size of the WAIS and GIS mass fluxes. The experiments have yielded a broad set of detection criteria involving minimum time spans and optimal geographic distributions for both tide gauge and/or satellite altimetry records. We will comment on the implications of these guidelines for efforts to infer past (e.g., 20th century) and future changes in polar ice sheet mass balance