Jesse Farmer
Biography
Jesse Farmer is an assistant professor in the School for the Environment. His research utilizes geochemical measurements of marine fossils to decipher how, why, and how quickly Earth’s carbon cycle changed during intervals of climate instability in Earth’s history. With this knowledge, he seeks to better understand how human carbon emissions will affect our future climate.
Jesse joined SFE in January 2023 following a postdoctoral fellowship at Princeton University.
Area of Expertise
Paleoceanography, paleoclimatology, ocean biogeochemistry, carbon cycle, nitrogen cycle, Arctic Ocean, marine sedimentology
Degrees
PhD, Earth and Environmental Sciences, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University
ScB, Geological Sciences, Brown University
Professional Publications & Contributions
For an updated list, please see Jesse's Google Scholar page
Since 2023:
Pavia, F., Farmer, J., Gemery, L., Cronin, T., Treffkorn, J., & Farley, K., 2025. Cosmic dust reveals dynamic shifts in central Arctic sea-ice coverage over the last 30,000 years. In press at Science, October 2025.
Rafter, P.*, Farmer, J.* (co-first authors), Martínez-García, A., et al., 2025. Persistent eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean upwelling since the warm Pliocene. Science, 390, eads8720.
Wanket, C., Kodama, S., Oppenheimer, J., Cocker, S., Steigerwald, E., Froese, D., Shapiro, B., Pico, T., & Farmer, J, 2025. Converging evidence constraints Late Pleistocene Bering Land Bridge History. Quaternary Science Advances, 19, 100292.
Farmer, J., Martínez-García, A., Sentman, L.T., et al., 2025. Early Pliocene shoaling of the Central American Seaway reconstructed from foraminifera-bound nitrogen and oxygen isotopes. Paleoceanogr. Paleoclimatology, 40, e2024PA005043.
Farmer, J., Fehrenbacher, J.S., Horner, T.J., Kast, E.R., 2025. Tools to trace past productivity and ocean nutrients, in A. Anbar, D. Weis (Eds.), Treatise on Geochemistry (3rd Edition), Elsevier, p. 111-151, doi:10.1016/B978-0-323-99762-1.00039-5.
Das, S.K., Mahanta, N. Sahoo, B., Singh, R.K., ... Farmer, J., et al., 2024. Late Miocene to Early Pliocene paleoceanographic evolution of the Central South Pacific: A deep-sea benthic foraminiferal perspective. Palaeogeogr. Palaeoclimatol. Palaeoecol., 647, 112252.
Lamy, F., Winckler, G., Arz, H.W., Farmer, J., et al., 2024. Five million years of Antarctic Circumpolar Current strength variability. Nature, 627, 789-796.
Middleton, J., Gottschalk, J., Winckler, G., ... Farmer, J., et al., 2024. Evaluating manual versus automated benthic foraminiferal d18O alignment techniques for developing chronostratigraphies in marine sediment records. Geochronology, 6, 125-145.
Moretti, S., Duprey, N.N., Foreman, A.D., ... Farmer, J., et al., 2024. Analytical improvements and assessment of long-term performance of the oxidation-denitrification method. Rapid Commun. Mass Spectrom., 38, e9650.
Marchitto, T.M. and Farmer, J., 2023. Nutrient Proxies, in S. Elias (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Quaternary Science (3rd Edition), Elsevier, doi:10.1016/B978-0-323-99931-1.00051-9.
Farmer, J., Keller, K.J., Poirier, R.K., Dwyer, G.S., Schaller, M.F., et al., 2023. A 600-kyr reconstruction of deep Arctic seawater d18O from benthic foraminiferal d18O and ostracode Mg/Ca paleothermometry. Clim. Past, 19, 555-578.
Farmer, J., Pico, T., Underwood, O.M., Cleveland Stout, R., Granger, J., et al., 2023. The Bering Strait was flooded 10,000 years before the Last Glacial Maximum. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A., 120(1), e2206742119.
Uchikawa, J., Penman, D.E., Harper, D.T., Farmer, J., Zachos, J.C., Planavsky, N.J. and Zeebe, R.E., 2023. Sulfate and phosphate oxyanions alter B/Ca and δ11B in inorganic calcite at constant pH: Crystallographic controls outweigh normal kinetic effects. Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta, 343, 353-370.