Research Interests

I am an earth scientist studying extreme precipitation and flooding across western North America, with a focus on understanding what our climate is truly capable of, beyond the short window of the modern instrumental record. My work uses lake sediments and other geological proxies to reconstruct flood histories spanning thousands of years. These deep-time records reveal the full range of the hydroclimate, including events far exceeding anything captured in the historical record. Central to my research are atmospheric rivers, the storm systems responsible for much of California’s precipitation, and some of the most catastrophic flooding across the Western U.S. By extending records of atmospheric river activity deep into Earth’s past, my work provides the long-term historical foundation needed to better forecast future extremes and build genuine climate resilience. My research also encompasses palynology, geochronology, and proxy-climate model comparisons.

Selected news coverage:
LA Times, NPR, SF Chronicle, The New York Times

 

Research and Professional Experience

2026 – present, Lawrence Fellow, Center for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

2021 – 2025, Research Geographer, Quaternary Paleoenvironmental Research Lab, U.S. Geological Survey

2019 – 2021, Data Analyst, Center for Ecosystem Climate Solutions

Ph.D., Environmental Science, University of California at Berkeley, 2021

M.Sc., Biodiversity Conservation, University of Oxford, 2016

M.Sc., Water Science, Policy, and Management, University of Oxford, 2015

B.A., Chemistry, Smith College, 2014

For a complete list of publications, see my Google Scholar profile. 

Selected publications:

Sanchez-Cabeza J-A, Aquino-López MA, Blaauw M, Ruiz-Fernández AC, Jupin JLJ, Anderson L, Knight CA, Champagne MR, Sanderson NK, Goring S, Christen JA. 2026. Guidelines for producing integrated 210Pb and 14C age-models. Earth Science Reviews 272. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.earscirev.2025.105301.

Shive KL, Knight CA, Steel ZL, Stanley CK, Wilson KN. 2025. Leveraging wildfire to augment forest management and amplify forest resilience. Ecosphere 16:e70306. https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.70306.

Knight CA, Wahl DB, Addison J, Baskaran M, Anderson RS, Anderson L, Presnetsova L, Caissie B, Starratt S. 2024. Twentieth century extreme precipitation detected in a high-resolution, coastal lake sediment record from California. Journal of Paleolimnology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10933-024-00345-9

Knight CA, Anderson L, Presnetsova L, Champagne M, Wahl D. 2024. Atmospheric river activity during the late Holocene exceeds modern range of variability in California. Nature Communications Earth & Environment 5 (216): https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-024-01357-z

Knight CA, Battles JJ, Bunting MJ, Champagne MR, Wanket JA, and DB Wahl. 2022. Methods for robust estimates of tree biomass from pollen accumulation rates: Quantifying paleoecological reconstruction uncertainty. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 10:956143. https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2022.956143

Knight CA, Anderson L, Bunting MJ, Champagne M, Crawford JN, Klimaszewski- Patterson A, Lake FK, Mensing SA, Potts MD, Wahl D, Wanket J, Watts-Tobin A, and JJ Battles. 2022. Land management explains major trends in forest biomass over the past millennia in California’s Klamath Mountains. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 119(12): e2116264119. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2116264119.

Wang, JA, Goulden M, Randerson JT, Knight CA, Battles JJ. 2022. Multidecadal trends and interactions in land disturbance regimes across California from time series remote sensing. AGU Advances 3, https://doi.org/10.1029/2021AV000654

Knight CA, Tompkins RE, Wang JA, York R, Goulden ML, Battles JJ. 2022. Accurate tracking of forest activity key to multi-jurisdictional management goals: A case study in California. Journal of Environmental Management 302:114083. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2021.114083

Knight CA, Baskaran M, Bunting MJ, Champagne M, Potts MD, Wahl D, Wanket J, Battles JJ. 2021. Linking modern pollen accumulation rates to biomass: Quantitative vegetation reconstruction in the western Klamath Mountains, NW California, USA. The Holocene. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959683620988038.

• Philomathia Graduate Fellowship at UC Berkeley (2021)
• W.C. Rosencrans Fellowship, research on forestry at UC Berkeley (2020)
• Hellman Graduate Scholar at UC Berkeley (2016-2021)
• UC Berkeley Fellowship for Graduate Study (2016-2021)
• Rhodes Scholarship to the University of Oxford (2014-2016)
• Distinction on master’s thesis, University of Oxford (2016)
• Summa cum laude (Latin Honors) with Highest Honors for Senior Thesis (2014)   
• Outstanding Undergraduate Poster Award, Geological Society of America (2014)
• National Iota Sigma Pi Undergraduate Award in Chemistry (2013)