Dr. Dunbar is interested in global climate change, and in particular how to separate man-induced climate change from the large and dynamic variability that is simply part of how our planet works. Every year he takes Stanford graduate and undergraduate students into the field to collect samples from natural archives of climate change--things like marine and lacustrine sediments, and cores from ancient coral heads. They focus on using isotopic and biogeochemical methods for measuring ocean temperatures at the poles, tropics, and within the deep ocean interior. His group also studies modern processes in the ocean; for example, how much carbon dioxide the ocean takes out of the atmosphere and what effects oceanic uptake has on biological processes in the sea. As director of the Earth Systems Program and a member of the management committee for Stanford's Center for Ocean Solutions, he is interested in how we translate scientific knowledge into better policies and practices to promote the sustainable use of the Earth.

Dr. Dunbar is a Senior Fellow, by courtesy, at the Woods Institute for the Environment.