About

Composer and pianist Anthony Cheung writes music that explores the senses, a wide palette of instrumental play and affect, improvisational traditions, reimagined musical artifacts, and multiple layers of textual meaning. Described as 'gritty, inventive and wonderfully assured' (San Francisco Chronicle) and praised for its 'instrumental sensuality' (Chicago Tribune), his music reveals an interest in the ambiguity of sound sources and constantly shifting transformations of tuning and timbre. As critic Paul Griffiths writes, 'Anthony Cheung has an intensely accurate sense of where his notes are going, and how and why…[his music’s] precision is responsible for a wealth of sonic magic.'

Research topics

• Geology
• Oceanography
• Chemistry
• Biology
• Ecology
• Mineralogy
• Environmental science

Selected publications

• Understanding the characteristics and drivers of Pacific decadal variability in the Community Earth System Model Last Millennium Ensemble

  Climate Dynamics · 2026-01-06 · 1 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Understanding the characteristics and drivers of Pacific decadal variability over the last millennium

  Research Square · 2025-07-31

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Understanding the characteristics and drivers of Pacific decadal variability over the last millennium

  Research Square · 2025-03-21 · 1 citations

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The Influence of Carbon Dioxide and Precession on Western North American Hydroclimate and Pacific Sea Surface Temperature During the Holocene

  Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology · 2025-07-01

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Model‐based projections of hydroclimate in western North America (wNA) remain uncertain and depend on how Pacific sea surface temperature (SST) will evolve in the future. However, whether climate models can accurately capture Pacific SST changes and its relationship with wNA hydroclimate in the future remains elusive. Here, we use a synthesis of proxy records and idealized model simulations to elucidate the spatiotemporal evolution and the forcings that drive wNA hydroclimate and Pacific SST during the Holocene (past ∼11,000 years), when the boundary conditions are different from the present. We find that wNA hydroclimate and Pacific SST co‐evolved during the Holocene, where wNA became wetter while the eastern equatorial Pacific and the north Pacific became warmer toward the present. We attribute changes in wNA hydroclimate to precession and carbon dioxide changes, but we are unable to attribute Pacific SST changes unambiguously to any forcing. Our analysis offers a framework to understand the relationship between wNA hydroclimate and Pacific SST and provides an empirical assessment of how these two regions are related over time.

  PublisherDOI

• Understanding the characteristics and drivers of Pacific decadal variability over the last millennium

  Research Square · 2025-03-10

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Proxy- and Model-Estimated Coupled Megadroughts in the Southwestern Regions of North and South America

  Journal of Climate · 2024-12-03

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract The North American Southwest (NASW) and South American Southwest (SASW) are regions susceptible to prolonged and intense droughts that can span a decade or more (i.e., megadroughts). Although the drivers and impacts of megadroughts in each region and their co-occurrence have been examined in paleoclimate reconstructions, it is not known whether climate models simulate co-occurring megadroughts in these regions with characteristics and drivers that are similar to the real world. We compare the temporal characteristics of concurrent megadroughts and the Pacific Ocean conditions associated with these events in the Paleo Hydrodynamics Data Assimilation (PHYDA) product and the Community Earth System Model Last Millennium Ensemble (CESM-LME). We find that concurrent megadroughts in PHYDA and CESM-LME have similar temporal characteristics, but the relationship between hydroclimate conditions in the NASW and SASW is different between proxy-based estimates and the climate model. Further analyses reveal that changes in the tropical Pacific Ocean are weaker during concurrent megadroughts in the CESM-LME compared to those in PHYDA and that their teleconnection patterns and strengths are different. Reconstruction methodology is also found to be a factor in how the relationship between the tropical Pacific and each region is characterized. These results together indicate that while the CESM-LME simulates concurrent megadroughts with temporal characteristics similar to PHYDA, it does so for different reasons; this result leaves open the question of whether climate models used for future projections can accurately capture the risk of concurrent megadroughts in future projections.

  PublisherDOI

• Near-synchronous Northern Hemisphere and Patagonian Ice Sheet variation over the last glacial cycle

  Nature Geoscience · 2024-05-01 · 13 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• A Meta‐Analysis of Studies Attributing Significance to Solar Irradiance

  Earth and Space Science · 2023-01-01 · 4 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract The relationship between solar irradiance and climate is greatly debated. This inferred relationship is often characterized via the statistical analysis of paleoclimate data. REDFIT is a commonly used statistical tool that overcomes uneven sampling to identify significant periodicities of variability in proxy data. We critically examine the use of REDFIT to identify solar signals in these data. By conducting a literature review, we show the REDFIT significance thresholds used by researchers to analyze paleoclimate data vary considerably. As there is some subjectivity and practicality involved in any statistical analysis, some variability is to be expected. However, we observe that the bulk of the significance thresholds used in the literature are less stringent than the critical false‐alarm level outlined by REDFIT's creators. We reexamine periodicities deemed “significant” in a published data set to show that using this more stringent, more objective critical false‐alarm threshold likely eliminates the previously inferred significance of solar signals in proxy data. Likewise, we address a lack of consideration of age model uncertainty on REDFIT's reliability in identifying solar periodicities. Overall, we show that the relationship between solar irradiance and climate, as identified by REDFIT analyses, may not be as robust as previous work might suggest.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Marginal Reefs Under Stress: Physiological Limits Render Galápagos Corals Susceptible to Ocean Acidification and Thermal Stress

  AGU Advances · 2022 · 13 citations

  • Oceanography
  • Ecology
  • Environmental science

  Abstract Ocean acidification (OA) and thermal stress may undermine corals' ability to calcify and support diverse reef communities, particularly in marginal environments. Coral calcification depends on aragonite supersaturation (Ω » 1) of the calcifying fluid (cf) from which the skeleton precipitates. Corals actively upregulate pH cf relative to seawater to buffer against changes in temperature and dissolved inorganic carbon, which together control Ω cf . Here we assess the buffering capacity of modern and fossil corals from the Galápagos Islands that have been exposed to sub‐optimal conditions, extreme thermal stress, and OA. We demonstrate a significant decline in pH cf and Ω cf since the pre‐industrial era, trends which are exacerbated during extreme warm years. These results suggest that there are likely physiological limits to corals' pH buffering capacity, and that these constraints render marginal reefs particularly susceptible to OA.

  PublisherDOI

• Middle to Late Holocene Sea Surface Temperature and Productivity Changes in the Northeast Pacific

  Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology · 2022-10-19 · 3 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Variations of the sea surface temperature (SST) and primary productivity in the northeast Pacific have far‐reaching implications. In addition to influencing the regional and global temperature and hydroclimate, these conditions also control marine ecosystems and their services, which subsequently impact regional economies. Yet, our understanding of the variability and controls of northeast Pacific SST and productivity on timescales exceeding observational records remains limited. Here, we use marine sediment records from seven locations, spanning 25.2°N–59.6°N, in the northeast Pacific to characterize the millennial‐scale variability of SST and productivity from 9,000 to 1,000 years BP. We explore the dynamics of their spatiotemporal evolution and compare these data with transient climate model outputs to identify potential drivers. Through a heat budget analysis and optimal fingerprinting analysis, we characterize the spatial pattern of forcings. We find that SST varied spatially in the northeast Pacific, with higher latitudes exhibiting greater magnitude changes than lower latitudes, which differs from previous work suggesting regional synchronicity and coherence during the Holocene. Our analysis did not find evidence for coherent variability of primary producer community nor carbon export, highlighting the difficulty of identifying the complex interactions between environmental conditions, producers, and carbon export. Model‐proxy disagreement demonstrates the need for higher resolution model frameworks, but shows nonetheless that observed variability in the proxy records can be explained by a combination of greenhouse gas and orbital forcing. We suggest that the complex SST variations and marine ecosystem responses to forced changes are important factors that can drive disagreements in model projections.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Timothy D. Herbert

  18 shared

• Richard S. Vachula

  Auburn University

  18 shared

• Janice Lough

  Australian Institute of Marine Science

  14 shared

• Samantha Sandwick

  Providence College

  14 shared

• L. Vetter

  13 shared

• Xiaojing Du

  Rice University

  13 shared

• Julia E. Cole

  University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

  13 shared

• Baylor Fox‐Kemper

  Providence College

  12 shared

Labs

• Music Department at Brown UniversityPI

Awards & honors

• American Academy of Arts and Letters Award
• Yvar Mikhashoff Trust for New Music Award