Natalie M Kehrwald
Biography
Education
PhD, Earth Sciences, The Ohio State University, 2009
MS, Geosciences, University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2004
BA, Environmental Science/Geology, Colorado College, 1999
Appointments
2015 - present Research Geologist, Geosciences and Environmental Change Science Center, USGS, Denver, Colorado
2011 - 2015 Research Scientist, Department of Environmental Sciences, Informatics and Statistics, University of Venice, Italy
2009 - 2011 Marie Curie Post-Doctoral Fellow, Italian National Research Council (CNR-IPDA), Italy
2009 Visiting Assistant Professor, Geology Department, Colorado College
1999 - 2001 U.S. Peace Corps, Environmental Engineer, Bolivia
Science and Products
Terrestrial Records of Holocene Climate Change: Fire, climate and humans
Large wildfires have raged across the western Americas in the past decade including the Las Conchas, New Mexico fire that burned 44,000 acres in a single day in 2011 (Orem and Pelletier, 2015, Geomorphology 232: 224-238, and references therein), the 2016 Fort McMurray, Alberta fire that required evacuating an entire city, and the 2015 Alaskan fire season that burned more than 5 million acres (...
Using wildland fire tracer molecules to investigate fire frequency and vegetative combustion sources archived in the Juneau Icefield of Alaska
The past decade includes some of the most extensive boreal forest fires in the historical record. Environmental drivers include warming temperatures, changing precipitation patterns, desiccation of thick organic soil layers, and increased ignition frequency from lightning. Wildland fires produce smoke aerosols that can travel thousands of kilometers, before blanketing the surfaces on whic
Trace and rare earth elements determination in milk whey from the Veneto region, Italy
Multi-element analyses determine the content of 17 trace elements (Al, V, Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, As, Se, Sr, Cd, Cs, Ba, Pb, U) and 14 rare earth elements (La, Ce, Pr, Nd, Sm, Eu, Gd, Tb, Dy, Ho, Er, Yb, Lu, Y) in whey samples from cow and goat milk by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry and inductively coupled plasma-sector field...
Tedesco, Raffaelo; Villoslada Hidalgo, Maria del Carmen; Varde, Massimiliano; Kehrwald, Natalie; Barbante, Carlo; Cozzi, GiulioBoreal blazes: Biomass burning and vegetation types archived in the Juneau Icefield
The past decade includes some of the most extensive boreal forest fires in the historical record. Warming temperatures, changing precipitation patterns, the desiccation of thick organic soil layers, and increased ignition from lightning all contribute to a combustive combination. Smoke aerosols travel thousands of kilometers, before blanketing the...
Kehrwald, Natalie; Jasmann, Jeramy Roland; Dunham, Melissa E.; Ferris, David G.; Osterburg, Erich C.; Kennedy, Joshua; Havens, Jeremy; Barber, Larry; Fortner, Sarah K.The Great Acceleration of fragrances and PAHs archived in an ice core from Elbrus, Caucasus
The Great Acceleration of the anthropogenic impact on the Earth system is marked by the ubiquitous distribution of anthropogenic materials throughout the global environment, including technofossils, radionuclides and the exponential increases of methane and carbon dioxide concentrations. However, personal care products as direct tracers of human...
Vecchiato, Marco; Gambaro, Andrea; Kehrwald, Natalie; Ginot, Patrick; Kutuzov, Stanislav; Mikhalenko, Vladimir; Barbante, CarloDissolved organic matter in the deep TALDICE ice core: A nano-UPLC-nano-ESI-HRMS method
Trace organic compounds in deep ice cores supply important paleoclimatic information. Untargeted analyses of dissolved organic matter provide an overview of molecular species in ice samples however, sample volumes usually required for these analyses are generally not available from deep ice cores. Here, we developed an analytical method using a...
Zangrando, Roberta; Zanella, Veronica; Karroca, Ornela; Barbaro, Elena; Kehrwald, Natalie; Battistel, Dario; Gambaro, Andrea; Barbante, CarloPaCTS 1.0: A crowdsourced reporting standard for paleoclimate data
The progress of science is tied to the standardization of measurements, instruments, and data. This is especially true in the Big Data age, where analyzing large data volumes critically hinges on that data being standardized. Accordingly, the lack of community-sanctioned data standards in paleoclimatology has largely precluded the benefits of Big...
Kehrwald, Natalie M.; Khider, Deborah; Emile-Geay, Julien; McKay, Nicholas P.; Gili, Yolanda; Garijo, Daniel; Ratnakar, Varun; Brewer, Peter; Csank, Adam; Dassie, Emilie; Delong, Kristine; Felix, Thomas; Gray, William; Jonkers, Lucas; Kahle, Michael; Kaufman, Darrell S.; Richey, Julie N.; Schmittner, Andreas; Sutherland, Elaine Kennedy; Alonso-Garcia, Montserrat; Sebastian, Bertrand; Bothe, Oliver; Bunn, Andrew; Chevalier, Manuel; Francus, Pierre; Frappier, Amy; Goring, Simon; Martrat, Belen; McGregor, Helen V.; Allen, Kathryn J.; Arnaud, Fabien; Axford, Yarrow L.; Barrows, Timothy T.; Bazin, Lucie; Pilaar Birch, S.E.; Bradley, Elizabeth; Bregy, Joshua; Capron, Emilie; Cartapanis, Olivier; Chiang, Hong-Wei; Cobb, Kim; Debret, Maxime; Dommain, Rene; Du, Jianghui; Dyez, Kelsey; Emerick, Suellyn; Erb, Michael; Falster, Georgina; Finsinger, Walter; Fortier, Daniel; Gauthier, Nicolas; George, Steven; Grimm, Eric; Hertzberg, Jennifer; Hibbert, Fiona; Hillman, Aubrey; Hobbs, William; Huber, Matthew; Hughes, Anna L. C.; Jaccard, Samuel; Jiaoyang, Ruan; Kienast, Markus; Konecky, Bronwen; Le Roux, Gael; Lyubchich, Vyacheslav; Novello, Valdir; Olaka, Lydia; Partin, Judson W.; Pearce, Christof; Phipps, Steven J.; Pignol, Cecile; Pietrowska, Natalia; Poli, Maria-Serena; Prokopenko, Alexander; Schwanck, Franciele; Stepanek, Christian; Swann, George E. A.; Telford, Richard; Thomas, Elizabeth R.; Thomas, Zoe; Truebe, Sarah; von Gunten, Lucien; Waite, Amanda; Weitzel, Nils; Wilhelm, Bruno; Williams, John B.; Winstrup, Mai; Zhao, Ning; Zhou, YuxinFire, vegetation, and Holocene climate in a southeastern Tibetan lake: a multi-biomarker reconstruction from Paru Co
The fire history of the Tibetan Plateau over centennial to millennial timescales is not well known. Recent ice core studies reconstruct fire history over the past few decades but do not extend through the Holocene. Lacustrine sedimentary cores, however, can provide continuous records of local environmental change on millennial scales during the...
Callergaro, Alice; Battistel, Dario; Kehrwald, Natalie M.; Matsubara Pereira, Felipe; Kirchgeorg, Torben; Villoslada Hidalgo, Maria del Carmen; Bird, Broxton W.; Barbante, CarloGlobal Modern Charcoal Dataset (GMCD): A tool for exploring proxy-fire linkages and spatial patterns of biomass burning
Progresses in reconstructing Earth's history of biomass burning has motivated the development of a modern charcoal dataset covering the last decades through a community-based initiative called the Global Modern Charcoal Dataset (GMCD). As the frequency, intensity and spatial scale of fires are predicted to increase regionally...
Hawthorne, Donna; Courtney Mustaphi, Colin J.; Aleman, Julie C.; Blarquez, Olivier; Colombaroli, Daniele; Daniau, Anne-Laure; Marlon, Jennifer R.; Power, Mitchell; Vanniere, Boris; Han, Youngming; Hantson, Stijn; Kehrwald, Natalie M.; Magi, Brian I.; Yue, Xu; Carcaillet, Christopher; Marchant, Rob; Ogunkoya, Ayodele; Githumbi, Esther N.; Muriuki, Rebecca M.Lake sediment fecal and biomass burning biomarkers provide direct evidence for prehistoric human-lit fires in New Zealand
Deforestation associated with the initial settlement of New Zealand is a dramatic example of how humans can alter landscapes through fire. However, evidence linking early human presence and land-cover change is inferential in most continental sites. We employed a multi-proxy approach to reconstruct anthropogenic land use in New Zealand’s South...
Argiriadis, Elena; Battistel, Dario; McWethy, David B.; Vecchiato, Marco; Kirchgeorg, Torben; Kehrwald, Natalie M.; Whitlock, Cathy; Wilmshurst, Janet M.; Barbante, CarloHigh latitude Southern Hemisphere fire history during the mid-late Holocene (750- 6000 yr BP)
We determined the specific biomass burning biomarker levoglucosan in an ice core from the TALos Dome Ice CorE drilling project (TALDICE) during the mid- to late Holocene (6000–750 BP). The levoglucosan record is characterized by a long-term increase with higher rates starting at ∼ 4000 BP and peaks between 2500 and 1500 BP. The anomalous...
Battistel, Dario; Kehrwald, Natalie M.; Zennaro, Piero; Pellegrino, Giuseppe; Barbaro, Elena; Zangrando, Roberta; Pedeli, Xanthi X.; Varin, Cristiano; Spolaor, Andrea; Vallelonga, Paul T.; Gambaro, Andrea; Barbante, CarloA North American Hydroclimate Synthesis (NAHS) of the Common Era
This study presents a synthesis of century-scale hydroclimate variations in North America for the Common Era (last 2000 years) using new age models of previously published multiple proxy-based paleoclimate data. This North American Hydroclimate Synthesis (NAHS) examines regional hydroclimate patterns and related environmental indicators,...
Rodysill, Jessica R. ; Anderson, Lesleigh; Cronin, Thomas M.; Jones, Miriam C.; Thompson, Robert S.; Wahl, David B.; Willard, Debra A.; Addison, Jason A.; Alder, Jay R.; Anderson, Katherine H.; Anderson, Lysanna; Barron, John A.; Bernhardt, Christopher E.; Hostetler, Steven W.; Kehrwald, Natalie M.; Khan, Nicole; Richey, Julie N.; Starratt, Scott W.; Strickland, Laura E.; Toomey, Michael; Treat, Claire C.; Wingard, G. LynnAnthropogenic impact in the Mayan Lowlands of Petén, Guatemala, during the last 5500 years
Trace and rare earth elements from a Lake Peten Itzá (Guatemala) sediment core depict the geochemical dynamics affecting the lake from ~5500 y BP to the present. This timing encompasses the Preclassic (4000 to 1700 y BP) and Classic Periods (1700-1000 y BP) when thriving Maya societies extensively cleared land for agriculture. We demonstrate that...
Battistel, D.; Roman, Marco; Marchetti, A; Kehrwald, Natalie M.; Radaelli, Marta; Balliana, Eleanora; Toscano, Giuseppina; Barbante, CarloProspects for reconstructing paleoenvironmental conditions from organic compounds in polar snow and ice
Polar ice cores provide information about past climate and environmental changes over periods ranging from a few years up to 800,000 years. The majority of chemical studies have focused on determining inorganic components, such as major ions and trace elements as well as on their isotopic fingerprint. In this paper, we review the different classes...
Giorio, Chiara; Kehrwald, Natalie M.; Barbante, Carlo; Kalberer, Markus; King, Amy C.F.; Thomas, Elizabeth R.; Wolff, Eric W.; Zennaro, PieroPre-USGS Publications
Friday's Findings - January 8 2020
We Did Start the Fire: Humans, Climate and Fire in the Holocene
Date: January 8, 2021 from 2-2:30 p.m. eastern time
Speaker: Natalie Kehrwald, Research Geologist, Geosciences and Environmental Change Science Center
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Fire Aerosols Affect Southeastern Alaskan Glaciers
This article is part of the Fall 2020 issue of the Earth Science Matters Newsletter.