Chaz Bethel-Brescia ’22, Computer Science

Chaz Bethel-Brescia ’22

Major

Computer Science

Project Title

Tracking the Expansion of Corrosive Waters in the Global Ocean in Earth System Model Projections

Presentation Link

View Chaz's Presentation

Certificate(s): Statistics and Machine Learning

I worked to quantify the pace of migration necessary for calcifying marine organisms to remain within habitable regions. I refined the measurement of climate velocity — which is a metric for how quickly environmental boundaries migrate due to climate change — to provide better insight into when and where organisms will face danger, and how quickly they must adapt. I analyzed 30 Earth system model simulations of the years 1950-2100, focusing mainly on carbonite-ion concentration in seawater. With an improved “escape velocity” calculation, I tracked the movement of the critical undersaturation boundary in which calcifying organisms can no longer build their shells or skeletons, and developed novel ways to visualize that information. I found that calcifying organisms globally and regionally must migrate increasingly quickly over the 21st century, particularly from the early- to mid-21st century in a high-emission scenario. In future investigations, my escape-velocity calculation method will be applied to additional climate stressors. During my internship, I learned about climate modeling, oceanography, managing large data sets and how to navigate the nonlinear research process. I hope to continue investigating current issues with data science through my independent work at Princeton.