Wisconsin Public Television University Place Wednesday Nite at the Lab  Todd LaMaskin Geological Perspectives on Climate Change  UP579 April 13, 2011	 	 	 cc	first vid >> Tom Zinnen: Welcome,	 everybody, to Wednesday Nite	 at the Lab.	 I'm Tom Zinnen and on behalf	 of the Wisconsin Alumni	 Association, Wisconsin Public	 Television, UW Extension,	 welcome to Wednesday Nite at the	 Lab.	 We do this every Wednesday	 night, 50 times a year.	 Tonight, I'm delighted	 to introduce one of my	 new colleagues at UW Extension	 Cooperative Extension,	 Todd LaMaskin.	 He's with the Wisconsin	 Geological and Natural History	 Survey.	 He grew up in Richmond,	 Virginia, went to school at	 Radford University in Virginia,	 and then the University of New	 Mexico at Albuquerque, got his	 master's degree there.	 If any of you have been to the	 University of New Mexico in	 Albuquerque, you know they've	 got a great museum of the	 southwest there.	 And then he got his PhD at	 University of Oregon at Eugene.	 Spent the last year consulting	 and started seven months ago	 with UW Extension Cooperative	 Extension and the Wisconsin	 Geological and Natural History	 Survey.	 Tonight, he's going to talk	 about the geological	 perspectives on global climate	 change.	 Please join me in welcoming Todd	 to Wednesday Nite at the Lab.	 [APPLAUSE]	 >> Todd LaMaskin: Can you	 hear me through this?	 Is that working?	 Great.	 Well, thanks very much for	 having me.	 I have the dubious honor of	 giving a talk at Wednesday Nite	 at the Lab which is not directly	 related...	 [LAUGHTER]	 This is where the light shines.	 [LAUGHTER]	 Let's start that again.	 [LAUGHTER]	 So I have the distinction of	 giving a talk tonight, which	 is not directly related to my	 personal research that I took	 on for my PhD or that I'm taking	 on at the University of	 Wisconsin-Extension, which is	 related to plate tectonics and	 the evolution of the continents	 and physical processes	 associated with	 hundreds of millions of years	 worth of growth of continents	 and things like that.	 But this is an interesting topic	 that seems to get a lot of	 people excited as well, so I	 thought I would take this	 opportunity to discuss sort of	 what is the history of	 paleoclimatology and what can	 geology inform us about the	 history of climate on Earth.	 So I caveat that by saying there	 may be a few questions that I'm	 unable to answer specifically,	 and there might even be some	 stuff that people in the	 audience are more specifically	 familiar with than I am.	 So please don't hesitate to	 raise your hand, ask any	 questions, throw any comments	 in, anything of that nature.	 	 So back in 1975 the US Committee	 for Global Atmosphere and	 Research recognized that only	 when the causes of past climatic	 fluctuations can really become	 understood will it be possible	 for us to really accurately	 forecast climatic variations in	 the future.	 And we do that by studying	 paleoclimatology which is	 different than climatology.	 Specifically, paleoclimatology	 deals with study of the Earth's	 climate and its variability	 prior to the period of	 instrumental measurements.	 The time period of instrumental	 measurements of Earth's climate	 is typically less than	 about 150 years.	 So a very small time frame of	 Earth history as well as human	 history which is recorded with	 instrumental measurements of	 climatic variability.	 So it's really much, much too	 short to examine the full range	 of climate variability and then	 predict in the future where	 climate might be going.	 So it's critical to examine	 climate change that goes back	 hundreds of years and thousands	 of years and even millions of	 years.	 Now, how do we do that?	 Ultimately, what we look at	 is different natural and proxy	 sources.	 And part of this talk is going	 to be going through what some of	 these proxy sources are and what	 the methods are that are used to	 measure paleoclimatic	 variability.	 So here's the end.	 You're welcome to get up and	 leave after this slide if you	 want.	 Where I hope that we get by the	 end of the evening to