Thesiss

As global change disrupts historical patterns of variation in the abiotic and biotic environment, there is an urgent need to not only investigate the ecological impacts of these complex changes, but how these novel environments will affect the evolutionary trajectory of local po…

This dissertation explores the hypothesis that land-atmosphere interactions exert a significant control on aridity at the regional scale. Interactions related to topography, drought, and land use are considered, with a geographic focus on the Middle East. In the first study it i…

The goal of this research has been to determine the nature and origin of low-latitude terrestrial climate variability prior to and after the rapid expansion of high-latitude ice sheets near 2.4 Myr to understand the interactions between high- and low-latitude climate systems sin…

This thesis examines how Wallace Stegner’s Angle of Repose and Edward Abbey’s The Monkey Wrench Gang have been molded by water scarcity and in turn have shaped the discourse about water. Angle of Repose offers a reliable history of water in the West, showing how the myth of the …