From a young age, Dr. Bryan Shuman was drawn to
understanding the way the natural world works. That fascination took him from
his native northeast to Colorado College for undergrad, Brown University for
grad school, the University of Oregon for a postdoc, the University of
Minnesota for his first faculty position, and finally to UW.
Now, as an associate professor in Geology and Geophysics and
director of the Roy Shlemon Center for Quaternary Studies, his desire to
understand the natural world is as strong as ever.
“I’m really interested in how climate changes and effects
water resources and ecosystems,” says Shuman, “and I use geologic evidence to
look at how that’s occurred in the past.”
He works within the timeframe of the past 15,000 years—since
the last ice age—and has research sites in Wyoming, Colorado, and New England.
In addition to using geologic evidence to understand climate processes, he also
looks at climate’s impact on other systems. “I do a lot of work with fossil
material to look at how forests in particular have responded. And I use lakes
as giant precipitation gauges to reconstruct drought patterns in the past
across many different parts of the continent.”
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Bryan Shuman at Lewis Lake. Work focuses on
documenting and mapping changes in the levels of lakes
throughout North America over the past 15,000 years.
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In order to conduct his research, Shuman employs less than
tradition methods. “For me, the Wyoming Center for Environmental Hydrology and
Geophysics (WyCEHG) is a really exciting development because I am basically the
only person in this field of paleoecology who uses geophysics,” he says.
Geophysical tools, such as ground penetrating radar (GPR), help him to evaluate
evidence of past climate change, and to look at the effects those changes have
had on water supply and forests.
Shuman hopes to use his research not only for the academic
purposes of reconstructing a climate history, but also to inform the public on
the ways a shifting climate could effect the water resources and ecosystems of
the future.
“One reason this research is important is that it’s
providing water managers with examples of how systems have changed before.
These are not climate model speculations about what might change, but actual
examples of ways in which our water resources have been impacted.”
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| In addition to his research, Shuman also teaches classes on climate. |
“People are often surprised to realize that there were times
when the Platte River—which we are totally dependent on for water and also
energy—was dry for thousands of years,” Shuman says, and it wasn’t so long ago
that the river was in that state. “The fact that we could change the climate
and move into a situation that’s much drier than we are currently used to is
not just an idea, it’s happened before.”
While his research can’t necessarily predict the future of
the climate, it can show that there are meaningful impacts that climate change
can produce. And it’s that deeper understanding of Earth’s history that really
drives Shuman’s scientific interests.
“My favorite thing about [this research] is recognizing that
the earth has been different in the past but that out there hidden in the
landscape are all these clues as to how things have been before. I find it
really amazing that I can go to a lake here in Wyoming, dig some material out
of the ground and put together part of the story. Then I could go to somewhere
in New England and see another piece of that story.”
“When we pull samples out of the ground, they have information
that tells us about the way the world works. That’s very cool.”
By Manasseh Franklin
