To mark its 20th anniversary, Climate of the Past, an interactive journal of the European Geosciences Union, is launching a special webinar series celebrating two decades of leading paleoclimate science.

Each webinar will emphasize the journal’s scientific diversity and impact, featuring two invited talks of 30 minutes from leading researchers across different areas of paleoclimate science. Talks will be followed by a live 30 minutes Q&A session, allowing for discussion and engagement with the broader community.

How rare are truly rare climate extremes? This session uncovers how paleoclimate archives and climate models together expose the full spectrum of hydroclimatic risk—past, present, and future—from hurricane overwash preserved in coastal sediments to centuries-long megadroughts revealed by proxy networks. To address this topic, we have selected two guest speakers: Jessica Pilarczyk (Simon Fraser University) and Jason Smerdon (Columbia University).

The webinar will last for one hour and conclude with half an hour audience Q&A. 

Talks:

Jessica Pilarczyk ((Simon Fraser University) - Holocene paleotempestology: unravelling the link between tropical cyclone activity and climate drivers

A major challenge in forecasting the timing, intensity, and impacts of future tropical cyclones (cyclones, hurricanes, typhoons) to coastal areas is the limited short-term instrumental record that does not capture the full spectrum of inundation events from the frequent, low-magnitude to rare, but intense events. Further, as the Earth’s climate continues to warm, understanding the climatic driving mechanisms responsible for modulating storm activity over sufficiently long timescales is of paramount importance. 

Climate models project an increase in the frequency of intense tropical cyclones, as well as a poleward migration in the latitude of their peak intensity, heightening the risk of storm hazards for a greater number of coastal areas, yet few long-term reconstructions of tropical cyclones exist. Fortunately, geological investigations using sediments transported to the coast by landfalling hurricanes (i.e., overwash deposits) are a means for expanding the age range for investigation so that risk assessments are better informed and connections between storm variability and other factors, such as climate drivers, may be properly assessed.

Jason Smerdon (Columbia University) - Mega-Effort: 20 years of work on characterizing and explaining megadroughts and megapluvials across the globe

Over the 20-year history of Climate of the Past, the paleoclimate community has worked expansively to develop Common Era reconstructions of past multidecadal drought and pluvial periods known as megadroughts and megapluvials.  These reconstruction efforts have been joined by modeling and climate dynamics studies that have sought to understand how such periods come to pass and how their incidence and severity will be influenced in the future.  

This talk will review work on mega-hydroclimatic events of the past and how they have been coupled with developments in climate modeling that have allowed causal insights.  It will begin with a focus on the origins of megadrought studies in southwestern North America before expanding to a more general characterization of how technological developments have allowed us to understand multidecadal hydroclimate events globally, their common drivers, and evidence for sychonous mega-hydroclimatic events that arise through these common origins.  The reflection will conclude with a discussion about remaining challenges in our study of these socially impactful and costly events.

Speakers:

Jessica Pilarczyk (Simon Fraser University) - Jessica is Associate Professor at the Coastal Hazards Research Lab; her research aims to understand how coastal systems have been altered by both extreme events (storms, tsunamis) and gradual environmental changes over the Holocene. Jessica's goal is to extend the short-term instrumental record, and through this improved understanding of impacts and processes, enhance our ability to forecast how coastal systems will respond in the future. Her current research interests fall into, but are not limited to, three broad themes: (1) the application of microfossils in monitoring and reconstructing coastal environments, (2) the role of storms and tsunamis on coastal evolution, and (3) the assessment of the risk of future great earthquakes along subduction zone coastlines using paleoseismology.

Jason Smerdon (Columbia University) - Jason is a Professor of Climate within the Columbia Climate School; his research focuses on climate variability and change during the past several millennia and how past climates can help us understand future climate change. He also holds appointments as Vice Dean for Academic Planning and Co-Director of the Master of Science in Climate program. He teaches courses on climate, environmental change and sustainable development to undergraduate and graduate students. Smerdon also lectures widely in public and private settings on the subject of climate change and its social dimensions. He is co-author (with Ed Mathez) of the textbook Climate Change: The Science of Global Warming and Our Energy Future (Columbia University Press, September 2018).

Need help?

If you have any questions about the webinar "Climate of the Past 20th Anniversary: Paleoclimate of Extreme Events", please contact us via webinars@egu.eu.

Webinar

Climate of the Past 20th Anniversary: Paleoclimate of Extreme Events

Start time

Wed, 8 Apr 2026 17:00 CEST

Duration

ca. 1h 30m

Contact

webinars@egu.eu