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Session 0-64/P-64: Paleoclimates: Is the Past the Key to the Future?
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The Earth's climate has changed radically through geologic time and this has been recognized since the early 19th century. But, only in the last two decades have computer-based climate models become sophisticated enough to robustly represent these changes. Because depositional systems are intrinsically dictated by contemporary climate and oceanography, these models have now become a powerful tool in frontier exploration, especially for predicting the past distribution and character of source, reservoir and seal facies. These are the same models that are used for assessing the nature and impact of future climate change. Therefore, understanding the veracity of model results is crucial for both explorationists and policy makers alike. Indeed, with current predictions of future concentrations of atmospheric CO2 on the order of 2x pre-industrial values by 2100, the pre-Pleistocene record may be our only guide to the future response of the climate system to such changes. Consequently, an important role of paleoclimate studies is to quantitatively test model results for widely varying climate states using geologic data from both the public domain and, where possible, the wealth of high quality data diligently collected by the oil Industry over the past century.
The goal of this session is therefore to bring together climate modelers, paleoclimatologists and explorationists in order to understand the past history of climate, the strengths and weakness of both paleoclimate models and data, and what implications this has for applications in oil and gas exploration as well as climate change research. We especially wish to encourage submissions from researchers involved in 'ground-truthing' model results through quantitative and qualitative data-model comparison.
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Contact Details and Further Information
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Further information about this conference can be found on the AAPG website: http://www.aapg.org/perth/index.cfm
If you require further information about this session please contact either Brian or myself:
Brian West, ExxonMobil Upstream Research Co., Houston
E-mail: brian.p.west@exxonmobil.com
Paul Markwick, GETECH Group plc., Leeds
E-mail: pjm@getech.leeds.ac.uk
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