Tamara Pico

About

Tamara Pico is an Assistant Professor in the Earth & Planetary Sciences division within the Physical & Biological Sciences Division at UC Santa Cruz. Her research centers on using solid Earth deformation as a lens to understand the coupling between ice sheets, sea level, and landscapes in the past. She employs glacial isostatic adjustment modeling as a tool to infer variations in past ice sheets and to understand how landscapes record solid Earth deformation over the ice age. Pico holds an A.B. in Chemistry from Princeton University, earned in 2014, along with certificates in Material Science & Engineering, Engineering Biology, and French Language & Culture. She completed her Ph.D. in Earth & Planetary Sciences at Harvard University in 2019, with a secondary field in Women, Gender, & Sexuality Studies. Her academic background and research focus contribute to advancing understanding of Earth's past climate and geological processes.

Research topics

• Geology
• Paleontology
• Climatology
• Oceanography

Selected publications

• The Bering Strait was flooded 10,000 years before the Last Glacial Maximum

  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2022-12-27 · 50 citations

  articleOpen access

  The cyclic growth and decay of continental ice sheets can be reconstructed from the history of global sea level. Sea level is relatively well constrained for the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM, 26,500 to 19,000 y ago, 26.5 to 19 ka) and the ensuing deglaciation. However, sea-level estimates for the period of ice-sheet growth before the LGM vary by > 60 m, an uncertainty comparable to the sea-level equivalent of the contemporary Antarctic Ice Sheet. Here, we constrain sea level prior to the LGM by rec…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• High interstadial sea levels over the past 420ka from the Huon Peninsula, Papua New Guinea

  Communications Earth & Environment · 2022-10-29 · 29 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract The history of sea level across the Quaternary is essential for assessing past and future climate. Global sea-level reconstructions are typically derived from oxygen isotope curves, but require calibration with geological constraints that are scarce prior to the last glacial cycle (>130 thousand years ago). Here we show that the coral reef terrace sequence at the Huon Peninsula (Papua New Guinea) provides such constraints up to ∼420 thousand years ago, through a geometric analysis of…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Glacial changes in sea level modulated millennial-scale variability of Southeast Asian autumn monsoon rainfall

  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2023-06-26 · 23 citations

  articleOpen access

  Most paleoclimate studies of Mainland Southeast Asia hydroclimate focus on the summer monsoon, with few studies investigating rainfall in other seasons. Here, we present a multiproxy stalagmite record (45,000 to 4,000 years) from central Vietnam, a region that receives most of its annual rainfall in autumn (September-November). We find evidence of a prolonged dry period spanning the last glacial maximum that is punctuated by an abrupt shift to wetter conditions during the deglaciation at ~14 ka.…

  PublisherDOI

• Glacial Isostatic Adjustment Shapes Proglacial Lakes Over Glacial Cycles

  Geophysical Research Letters · 2022-11-29 · 14 citations

  article

  Abstract As ice sheets load Earth's surface, they produce ice‐marginal depressions which, when filled with meltwater, become proglacial lakes. We include self‐consistently evolving proglacial lakes in a glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA) model and apply it to the Laurentide ice sheet over the last glacial cycle. We find that the locations of modeled lakes and the timing of their disappearance is consistent with the geological record. Lake loads can deflect topography by >10 m, and volumes col…

  PublisherDOI

• Toward New and Independent Constraints on Global Mean Sea‐Level Highstands During the Last Glaciation (Marine Isotope Stage 3, 5a, and 5c)

  Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology · 2022-12-01 · 8 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Estimates of ice volume over the last 120 ka, from marine isotope Stage (MIS) 5d (∼110 ka) through MIS 3 (60–26 ka) are uncertain. Weiss et al. (2022, https://doi.org/10.1029/2021PA004361 ) offer an innovative new constraint on past sea level using the oxygen isotopes ( δ 18 O) of planktic (surface and thermocline dwelling) foraminifers to infer the salinity of the Sulu Sea in the Indo‐Pacific Ocean and assess flow through the Karimata Strait (Indonesia) over the last glaciation. Based…

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• Bounding global ice volumes over the last glacial cycle using reconstructions of Bering Strait flooding

  NSF · $321k · 2021–2026

• Tracking Past Ice Sheets with North American River Drainage Basin Captures Induced by Glacial Isostatic Adjustment

  NSF · $413k · 2021–2026

• EAR-PF: Revisiting Megafloods: Insights From Glacial Isostatic Adjustment on Flood Size, Flow Routes, and Climate Response

  NSF · $174k · 2019–2021

Frequent coauthors

• J. X. Mitrovica

  83 shared

• Jacqueline Austermann

  32 shared

• Gino de Gelder

  Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1

  25 shared

• Laurent Husson

  Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

  21 shared

• Jean Braun

  Helmholtz Centre Potsdam - GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences

  20 shared

• Evelyn Powell

  19 shared

• Alan C Mix

  Oregon State University

  15 shared

• Denovan Chauveau

  15 shared

Labs

• Pico GroupPI

  Not provided

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