Rob Dunbar and Hatch
Address:
Dr. Robert B. Dunbar
Department of Earth Systems Science
Geology Corner, Room 326
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-2115
Phone: (650) 725-6830
Dunbar
Google Scholar
dunbar(at)stanford.edu
Dunbar TED Talk
For Prospective Students:
See Papers by Advisees Section of my CV
Stanford
Homepage
School
of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences
Stable Isotope
Biogeochemistry Lab (SIBL) located in rooms 332 and
334 of Green Earth Sciences
Woods Institute for the
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Dunbar
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My
research and teaching interests include Climate
Change, Oceanography, Marine Ecology, and
Biogeochemistry. I am also engaged in using marine
science to inform policies directed towards
solving key problems involving the oceans. My
research group studies global environmental change
with a focus on air-sea interactions,
tropical marine ecosystems, polar climate
change past and present, and the biogeochemistry
of elements involved in life processes in the sea,
e.g., oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, phosphorus, and
carbon.
I
arrived at Stanford in 1997, from Rice University.
At Stanford I've created and/or led several
environmental academic programs. In October, 2001,
I became the founding director of a new Interdisciplinary
Graduate Program in Environment and Resources (IPER, now
Emmett-IPER), a position I held through 2005. In
January, 2003, I was appointed the Victoria P. and
Roger W. Sant Director of the Earth
Systems Program,the
largest undergraduate and co-terminal masters
program in the School of Earth, Energy, and
Environmental Sciences. In January, 2004, I was
named the J. Frederick and Elisabeth B. Weintz
University Fellow in Undergraduate Education. This
fellowship is in recognition of teaching and
mentoring of Stanford undergraduate students
and is
among the
most meaningful honors I have received. I was named
the William M. Keck Professor of Earth Science in
2008, the same year that I moved from the Department
of Geological and Environmental Sciences (now
Department of Geological Sciences) to the newly
created Department
of Earth System Science. In 2009, I was
elected as a Trustee for the Consortium
for Ocean Leadership in Washington D.C. where
I remain active in promoting sound ocean policy as
well as federal funding for ocean research. In 2018
I was appointed to the Board on Atmospheric Science
and Climate of the U.S. National Academy of
Sciences. Over the past 20 years I have helped start
new tropical marine stations, run many field
programs in Antarctica and the tropics, and engaged
in many types of international science exchange and
partnership. Details of these activities can be
found in my CV.
The
Dunbar Lab is currently working on several projects
in Antarctica to assess the impacts of climate
change on Southern Ocean ecosystems and C-system
chemistry, as well as melt rates of the ice sheet.
Some of this work focuses on the Ross Sea where we
are studying the modern uptake of carbon dioxide by
the ocean and the sensitivity of primary production
to changes in nutrients, trace elements, vitamins,
temperature, sea ice cover, and the C chemistry of
seawater. We continue to use sediment cores from
fjords and shelf basins of East Antarctica and the
Antarctic Peninsula to study past and changes in the
Antarctic Ice Sheet. We are also engaged in analysis
of stable isotopes of oxygen and hydrogen in
seawater samples from along Antarctica's ice
margins. This is a new method, completely
independent of satellite data, that shows promise
for the estimation of melt rates from Antarctica's
continental ice sheet. The method is easily
transported to other ice margins in Patagonia,
Alaska, and Greenland.This project involves
significant instrumentation development as well as
field work in Antarctica. Our current focal region
is Pine Island Bay.
My
lab has begun an exciting new project working in the
Chagos Archipelago, British Indian Ocean Territory,
with partners from Oxford University and the
Zoological Society of London. With funding from the
Bertarelli
Programme in Marine Science we are working to
understand biological, physical, and genetic drivers
of biodiversity and change in the regions coral
reefs. Our project is part of a much larger effort
focused on transformative scientific research within
one of the world's largest and pristine no-take
Marine Protected Areas.
I
been working for 45 years to develop high resolution
records of past climatic and oceanic variability in
modern lakes and oceans - and this work continues in
2020. By understanding natural climate variability
in our recent past, we are better able to discern
man-made impacts on our climate system. To pursue
this research we use the skeletons of long-lived
corals from the tropics and the deep sea, as well as
sediments from lakes and marine environments. We use
chemical, isotopic, and morphological measurements
of these materials to investigate the timing and
rates of change associated with past climate and C
cycle excursions. Field areas include the American
Samoa, Antarctica, Easter Island, the Galapagos
Islands, Patagonia, and Palau.
After
years
of only working in remote locations on the far side
of the world, I finally have a project in my
backyard. Working with colleagues at Cal State
Northridge, MBARI, and Stanford, we have
instrumented a Kelp Forest at Stanford's Hopkins
Marine Station in Pacific Grove to examine how the
kelp community modifies seawater and is in turn
impacted by changes in seawater chemistry.
We
are also engaged in a collaboration with colleagues
in Civil
and Environmental Engineering at
Stanford and MBARI
to develop instrumentation and methodologies for
better understanding and measuring ocean physics and
biogeochemistry in coastal marine systems.
I travel a lot for my work and I am
an avid nature photographer. See
this page for photographs from Antarctica,
South Georgia, Falklands, New Guinea, Nepal,
Greenland, Kamchatka, Australia, Palmyra, Palau,
American Samoa, Argentina, Alaska, Chile, Japan,
Maldives, Seychelles, Mauritius, Chagos, Iceland,
and Africa. Some videos are posted at my
youtube site.
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Education
- Ph.D., 1981, Oceanography, Scripps
Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego
- B.S., 1975, Geology (with Special Honors), University
of Texas, Austin
Employment
- W.M. Keck Professor of Earth Science, Stanford University,
2008-present
- Senior Fellow, Woods Institute for the Environment,
Stanford University, 2005-present
- Anne T. Robert M. Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate
Education, 2013-present
- Professor of Earth System Science, Stanford University,
2007-present
- Director, Stanford Stable Isotope Biogeochemistry
Laboratory
- J. Frederick and Elisabeth B. Weintz University
Fellow in Undergraduate Education, 2003-2013
- Victoria P. and Roger W. Sant Director of the Earth
Systems Program at Stanford, 2003-2011
- Professor of Geological and Environmental Sciences,
Stanford University, 1997-2007
- Founding Director of the Emmett Interdisciplinary Graduate
Program in Environment and Resources, 2001-2005
- Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute of International
Studies, Stanford University, 1998-2010
- Adjunct Professor of Geology and Geophysics, Rice
University, 1997-2000
- Professor of Geology and Geophysics, Rice University,
1994-1997
- Visiting Scientist, National Geophysical Data Center,
1994-1996
- Assistant/Associate Professor of Geology, Rice University,
1982-1994
- Master, Baker College, Rice University, 1989-1994
- Visiting Fellow, Research School of Earth Sciences,
Victoria Univ. of Wellington, New Zealand, 1988
- Visiting Scientist, Geology Department, University of New
Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 1988
- Visiting Assistant Professor of Earth Sciences, University
of California, San Diego, 1981-82
Full
CV
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Classes
Taught at Stanford |
-
GES 4: Undergraduate Seminar in Geological and
Environmental Sciences
- GES
38N: Stanford Introductory Seminar: Science and
History of Polar Exploration
- GES 41: Stanford Introductory Seminar, El Nino: History
and Predictability of a Global Climate Pacemaker
- GES 56: Stanford Introductory Dialog, Change in the
Coastal Ocean: The View from Monterey Bay
- GES
56Q: Stanford Introductory Seminar, Change in the
Coastal Ocean: The View from Monterey Bay
- GES 155: Biogeochemistry of the Southern Ocean
- GES 163: Introduction to Isotope Geology
- GES 164: Stable Isotope Geochemistry
- GES
205: Advanced Oceanography
- GES
206: Antarctic Marine Geology & Geophysics
- GES 254: Paleoceanography
- GES 257: Climate Variability and Forcing Mechanisms of
the last 2000 years
- GES 290: Numerical Analysis of Geological Time Series
- ESS
182: Stanford @ SEA
- IPER 310: Environmental Forum Seminar
- EARTHSYS 210 Earth Systems Senior Seminar
- EARTHSYS 297 Directed Study and Creative Writing
- ESS
240 Advanced Oceanography
- ESS
242 Antarctic Marine Geology
- EARTHSYS 199 Honors Program
- OSPGEN
53 Corals of Palau: Ecology, The Physical
Environment, and Reefs at Risk
- OSPGEN
12 Uttermost Part of the Earth The Intersection of
Nature and the Human Enterprise in Patagonia
- OSPGEN 2020 Earth’s 3rd Pole: Coupled Human-Natural
Systems in the Khumbu Valley, Nepal
- ESS
10SC In the Age of the Anthropocene: Coupled-Human
Natural Systems of Southeast
Alaska
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ESS
40 Approaching Palau: Preparation and Research
Ideation and Development
- ESS 355
Coral Reefs of the Western Pacific:
Interdisciplinary Perspectives, Emerging Crises, and
Solutions
- ESS 215 Approaching
Nepal: Coupled Human-Natural Systems of the Solokhumbu
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Publications
(see full CV) |
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