Biography

Christopher D. Charles
Professor of Oceanography
Geosciences Research Division

Christopher Charles is a professor of oceanography in the Geosciences Research Division at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego.

His research focuses on the geological record of recent climate change, and he is especially interested in the mechanisms of climate variability, forced and unforced. Along with former and current students in his group, he is helping to build a detailed record of the El Niño phenomenon extending through the last few millennia using fossil corals. This work has taken him to coral reefs throughout the tropical oceans, where he developed a keen interest in the controls on sea level variability and coral reef vitality.

Charles also has a long-standing interest in the Southern Ocean deep sea sedimentary record of climate, and he has helped orchestrate several sediment coring campaigns in the South Atlantic Ocean. In his time on the faculty at Scripps, he has taught at all levels of the University of California system including lower division courses in Environmental Science, upper division courses in Environmental Systems, and graduate courses in Marine Geology and Paleoclimatology.

Born in Lancaster, Penn., he received his B.A. in paleontology from the University of California, Berkeley and his M.A. and Ph.D. in geology from Columbia University. He was a NASA/Goddard Institute for Space Studies postdoctoral research fellow at Columbia.

Charles is a member of the American Geophysical Union. He currently serves as editor-in-chief of the AGU journal Paleoceanography. He has serves as an advisory panelist for the National Science Foundation Earth Systems History Program, and he has served as a science advisory panelist for the Ocean Drilling Program.

Last updated May 2007