In her letters to Descartes, Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia asks a question that many modern philosophers have tried to answer: "Given that the soul of a human being is only a thinking substance, how can it affect the bodily spirits, in order to bring about voluntary action?" Here Elizabeth questions the very nature of the relationship between mind and body. It is not easily understood or explained how a nonphysical substance can affect or be affected by a physical substance in order to create both sensations and voluntary movement. Through the attempts to find solutions to this problem, it becomes clear that the true problem lies in Descartes' separation of the nonphysical mind and the physical body within the idea of a person. Drawing from Spinoza, Locke, and Hobbes, I argue that mind and body are simply two ways of understanding a single, indivisible human being.

The rate at which the ocean absorbs heat from the atmosphere is poorly understood in the climate system, and is a large source of uncertainty in predictions of climate change. Furthermore, the spatial distribution of ocean heat uptake is tightly coupled to major patterns in global ocean circulation. Changes in the distribution of ocean heat uptake may have long term repercussions on global climate patterns. Using global climate model output from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5), this study examines: A) model predictions of ocean heat uptake over time, and B) the relationship between heat uptake, surface wind stress, and eddy parameterizations in the Southern Ocean. All calculations were averaged over three 20 year periods spanning 1860 - 2100 under a scenario of increased greenhouse gas emissions. For each time period and each model, the ocean heat uptake was averaged across bands of constant latitude. We found that although all the models show hemispheric asymmetry in ocean heat uptake, they vary widely in projections of how the asymmetry changes over time. To isolate a potential cause of this asymmetry, we use Ekman theory to examine upwelling induced by surface wind stress in the Southern Ocean. We anticipate a positive correlation between surface winds and ocean heat uptake, although this is relationship is complicated by the depth of the mixed layer, and the various methods of representing ocean eddies.

Paleoclimate data suggest that anomalously cold conditions across the North Atlantic and a southward shift of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), a major feature of the tropical atmosphere, occurred during the Little Ice Age (LIA) ~ 1350 – 1850 AD. The purpose of this research is to identify whether climate changes during this time can be attributed to changes in external forcings such as solar insolation, volcanic aerosols, and greenhouse gas concentrations. To address this question, I am evaluating changes in North Atlantic surface temperature and changes in the position of the ITCZ over time with eight climate models used in the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Report. In each model, two types of runs are analyzed: pre-industrial control runs and last millennium runs. The pre-industrial control runs are 1,000-year runs with external forcings held at 1850 AD levels. In order to identify the models with realistic climatology in the tropical Pacific (a key area to monitor changes in the ITCZ), I compared the mean precipitation and surface temperature fields from the pre-industrial control runs with modern observational data. The results suggest that CCSM4, GISS, MPI, and FGOALS have the smallest mean state biases in the tropical Pacific and thus further analyses will be limited to these models. In addition, I am analyzing the last millennium runs of these models, which are 1,000-year runs with external forcings that change over time in accordance with paleoclimate records. Our hypothesis is that the LIA climate anomalies occurred due to changes in external forcing, thus, colder North Atlantic temperatures and a southward shifted ITCZ should be observed between 1350 – 1850 AD in the last millennium runs, and be unprecedented when compared to the pre-industrial control runs.

Global Climate Models (GCMs) are used for predicting numerous aspects of the climate system for storm prediction, patterns and cycles, and understanding of the atmosphere. These models, however, have problems in accurately predicting precipitation in certain areas which is what my research will be focusing on. The double intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ) problem in one of the major flaws in current GCMs which results in over-predicting precipitation over the southern tropics, a region that is mostly water, by producing two ITCZs straddling the equator. Recent studies have led to the conclusion that cloud biases over the Southern Ocean in current GCMs explain the hemispheric asymmetry of tropical precipitation, and are thus responsible for the double ITCZ problem. This study looks to find the source of the error by reparameterizing shortwave cloud radiative forcing over the Southern Ocean in order to account for the greater cloud coverage observed, which is not represented in the GCMs. To accomplish this I manipulate the cloud parameterization in the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory's aquaplanet AM2 model, which models the atmosphere of a water covered planet. The results of this study will lead to more accurate climate modeling ability over the water-covered portions of Earth, and will specifically aid in our understanding of precipitation predictions over the southern tropics.