Sarah Truebe

Sarah Truebe is a 2014 recipient of the Climate Assessment for the Southwest (CLIMAS) Climate & Society Graduate Fellows Program. Sarah is a Ph.D student in the Department of Geosciences at the University of Arizona.

Sarah's research explores the dynamical mechanisms of the North American monsoon over the Holocene (last 10,000 years). The North American monsoon delivers half of our annual precipitation, but it is currently a feature of Southwest climate that is not well reproduced in global climate models. Thus, we do not yet know if we should prepare for major changes in the monsoon as climate changes – what if it fails, as it did in the summer of 2009 when we got only a few weeks of rain, for a number of years in a row? What does that mean for water managers and residents of the Southwest?

Sarah's Climate and Society Fellows project, An Assessment of Speleothem Sampling Methods for Paleoclimate Research, had four primary goals: 1) develop a list of currently used speleothem sampling methods,  2) increase transparency of speleothem selection and sampling methodology for scientists and other stakeholders, 3) provide a forum (initially though online survey) for other cave stakeholders such as managers, owners, and recreational cavers to give feedback on currently used methods, and 4) develop a set of “best practice” recommendations for sampling.