Benjamin I Cook

Biographic Data

ID6230550
NAMEBenjamin I Cook
GIVEN NAMESBenjamin I
FAMILY NAMECook
SIGNATURECOOK B I
AFFILIATIONSGoddard Institute for Space Studies
ORCID0000-0002-4501-9229
VERIFIEDYes
TOTAL WORKS14
TOTAL CITATIONS6
WORKS AS AUTHOR14
WORKS AS EDITOR0
FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR2010
LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR2025
H-INDEX1

  • Design and simulation of a logistically constrained high-latitude, low-altitude stratospheric aerosol injection scenario in the Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM)

    Open AccessLauren Wheeler, Benjamin Wagman et al.ARTICLEEnvironmental Research Letters2025

    The Arctic is warming faster than the rest of the globe, posing risks to climate tipping elements such as the collapse of the Greenland Ice Sheet, winter Arctic sea ice loss, weakening of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, and permafrost collapse. Stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) has shown potential to ameliorate these effects by reducing surface temperatures. Due to the potential for an asymmetric hemispheric response in preci…

  • Responses of compound daytime and nighttime warm-dry and warm-humid events to individual anthropogenic forcings

    Open AccessFelicia Chiang, Benjamin I Cook et al.ARTICLEEnvironmental Research Letters2022

    Daytime heat is often associated with reduced soil moisture and cloud cover, while nighttime heat is connected to high humidity and increased cloud cover. Due to these differing mechanisms, compound daytime and nighttime heat events may respond differently to major anthropogenic forcings (greenhouse gases, anthropogenic aerosols, land-use and land-cover change). Here, we use GISS ModelE2.1-G historical single-forcing runs from 1955 to 2014 to exa…

  • Projected changes in early summer ridging and drought over the Central Plains

    Open AccessBenjamin I Cook, Park Williams et al.ARTICLEEnvironmental Research Letters2022

    Early summer (May–June–July; MJJ) droughts over the Central Plains are often caused by atmospheric ridging, but it is uncertain if these events will increase in frequency or if their influence on drought severity will change in a warming world. Here, we use tree-ring based reconstructions (1500–2020 CE) of MJJ ridging and 0–200 cm soil moisture with six CMIP6 model ensembles to investigate the response of Central Plains drought dynamics to a mode…

  • Moisture and temperature influences on nonlinear vegetation trends in Serengeti National Park

    Open AccessNingyuan Huang, Pinki Mondal et al.ARTICLEEnvironmental Research Letters2021

    While long-term vegetation greening trends have appeared across large land areas over the late 20th century, uncertainty remains in identifying and attributing finer-scale vegetation changes and trends, particularly across protected areas. Serengeti National Park (SNP) is a critical East African protected area, where seasonal vegetation cycles support vast populations of grazing herbivores and a host of ecosystem dynamics. Previous work has shown…

  • Placing the east-west North American aridity gradient in a multi-century context

    Open AccessDaniel A Bishop, Park Williams et al.ARTICLEEnvironmental Research Letters2021

    Instrumental records indicate a century-long trend towards drying over western North America and wetting over eastern North America. A continuation of these trends into the future would have significant hydroclimatic and socioeconomic consequences in both the semi-arid Southwest and humid East. Using tree-ring reconstructions and hydrologic simulations of summer soil moisture, we evaluate and contextualize the modern summer aridity gradient withi…

  • Dendroarchaeological analysis of the Terminal Warehouse in New York City reveals a history of long-distance timber transport during the Gilded Age

    Open AccessCaroline Leland, Mukund Palat Rao et al.ARTICLEJournal of Archaeological Science…2021References: 2

  • Effect of irrigation on humid heat extremes

    Open AccessNir Y Krakauer, Benjamin I Cook et al.ARTICLEEnvironmental Research Letters2020

    Most studies of irrigation as an anthropogenic climate forcing focus on its cooling effects. However, irrigation also increases humidity, and so may not ameliorate humid heat and its extremes. We analyzed global climate model results over hot locations and seasons at high temporal resolution to estimate the impact of irrigation on humid heat extremes, quantified as different percentiles of wet-bulb temperature ( T w ), under contemporary conditio…

  • Climate controls on tree growth in the Western Mediterranean

    Open AccessRamzi Touchan, Kevin J Anchukaitis et al.ARTICLEThe Holocene2017References: 4

    The first large-scale network of tree-ring chronologies from the western Mediterranean (WM; 32°N–43°N, 10°W–17°E) is described and analyzed to identify the seasonal climatic signal in indices of annual ring width. Correlation and rotated empirical orthogonal function analyses are applied to 85 tree-ring series and corresponding gridded climate data to assess the climate signal embedded in the network. Chronologies range in length from 80 to 1129 …

  • Lux et Umbra

    Benjamin Cook, Benjamin I CookARTICLEMoving Image Review & Art Journal…2017

  • North American megadroughts in the Common Era

    Open AccessBenjamin I Cook, Edward R Cook et al.ARTICLEWiley Interdisciplinary Reviews…2016Cited by: 5References: 5

    During the Medieval Climate Anomaly ( MCA ), Western North America experienced episodes of intense aridity that persisted for multiple decades or longer. These megadroughts are well documented in many proxy records, but the causal mechanisms are poorly understood. General circulation models ( GCMs ) simulate megadroughts, but do not reproduce the temporal clustering of events during the MCA , suggesting they are not caused by the time history of …

  • Unprecedented 21st century drought risk in the American Southwest and Central Plains

    Open AccessBenjamin I Cook, Toby R Ault et al.ARTICLEScience Advances2015

    Evidence suggests that Western North America will be drier at the end of the 21st century than any period of the last 1000 years.

  • Assessing the evolving fragility of the global food system

    Open AccessMichael J Puma, Satyajit Bose et al.ARTICLEEnvironmental Research Letters2015

    The world food crisis in 2008 highlighted the susceptibility of the global food system to price shocks. Here we use annual staple food production and trade data from 1992–2009 to analyse the changing properties of the global food system. Over the 18 year study period, we show that the global food system is relatively homogeneous (85% of countries have low or marginal food self-sufficiency) and increases in complexity, with the number of global wh…

  • Paleoclimate histories improve access and sustainability in index insurance programs

    Open AccessAndrew Reid Bell, Daniel E Osgood et al.ARTICLEGlobal Environmental Change2013Cited by: 1References: 6

  • Ecological forecasting under climatic data uncertainty

    Open AccessBenjamin I Cook, Adam Terando et al.ARTICLEEnvironmental Research Letters2010

    Forecasting ecological responses to climate change represents a challenge to the ecological community because models are often site-specific and climate data are lacking at appropriate spatial and temporal resolutions. We use a case study approach to demonstrate uncertainties in ecological predictions related to the driving climatic input data. We use observational records, derived observational datasets (e.g. interpolated observations from local…