James D. Hays is a professor of

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to Planetary habitability, harbor life. This is enabled by Earth being an ocean world, the only one in the Solar System sustaining liquid surface water. Almost all ...

and environmental sciences at

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

's Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory. Hays founded and led the

CLIMAP Climate: Long range Investigation, Mapping, and Prediction, known as CLIMAP, was a major research project of the 1970s and 80s to produce a map of climate conditions during the Last Glacial Maximum. The project was funded by the National Science ...

project, which collected sea floor sediment data to study surface sea temperatures and paleoclimatological conditions 18,000 years ago. Hays is best known as a co-author of the 1976 paper in ''

Science Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. Modern science is typically divided into twoor threemajor branches: the natural sciences, which stu ...

'', "Variations in the Earth's orbit: Pacemaker of the ice ages." Using

ocean sediment Marine sediment, or ocean sediment, or seafloor sediment, are deposits of insoluble particles that have accumulated on the seafloor. These particles either have their origins in soil and rocks and have been transported from the land to the ...

cores, the ''Science'' paper verified the theories of

Milutin Milanković Milutin Milanković (sometimes Anglicisation of names, anglicised as Milutin Milankovitch; sr-Cyrl, Милутин Миланковић, ; 28 May 1879 – 12 December 1958) was a Serbian mathematician, astronomer, climatologist, geophysics, geo ...

that oscillations in climate can be correlated with Earth's orbital variations of

eccentricity Eccentricity or eccentric may refer to: * Eccentricity (behavior), odd behavior on the part of a person, as opposed to being "normal" Mathematics, science and technology Mathematics * Off-Centre (geometry), center, in geometry * Eccentricity (g ...

axial tilt In astronomy, axial tilt, also known as obliquity, is the angle between an object's rotational axis and its orbital axis, which is the line perpendicular to its orbital plane; equivalently, it is the angle between its equatorial plane and orbita ...

, and

precession Precession is a change in the orientation of the rotational axis of a rotating body. In an appropriate reference frame it can be defined as a change in the first Euler angle, whereas the third Euler angle defines the rotation itself. In o ...

around the Sun (see

Milankovitch cycles Milankovitch cycles describe the collective effects of changes in the Earth's movements on its climate over thousands of years. The term was coined and named after the Serbian geophysicist and astronomer Milutin Milanković. In the 1920s, he pr ...

). He graduated from

with a Ph.D. in 1964,

Ohio State University The Ohio State University (Ohio State or OSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio, United States. A member of the University System of Ohio, it was founded in 1870. It is one ...

with a Master of Science in 1960 and

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

with a Bachelor of Arts in 1956. He became a recipient of the

Milutin Milankovic Medal The Milutin Milankovic Medal is an annual award in Earth science presented by the European Geosciences Union (EGU). The award was introduced in 1993 by the European Geophysical Society (EGS). After a merger with the European Union of Geosciences ...

in 2010.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hays, James D. Year of birth missing (living people) American climatologists Columbia University faculty Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory people Living people Harvard University alumni Columbia University alumni Ohio State University alumni

See also

References