Combining climate proxies, observations, and models to refine future climate projections.
Research Area
Broadly speaking, my research focuses on understanding the mechanisms and magnitude of past climate change across time and spatial scales. My group integrates diverse climate “proxy” databases—mainly, measurements from ice cores and ocean sediments—with global climate simulations, mechanistic proxy models, and modern observations. We aim to uncover past changes to better predict future climate outcomes by enhancing climate model projections.
Currently, my lab's research centres on three overarching themes. First, we develop innovative methods to pair proxies with climate model simulations, primarily using paleoclimate data assimilation. These techniques are providing insights into diverse periods like the mid-Pliocene, the last Ice Age, and the Holocene. Second, we explore past changes through proxy system development, using statistical techniques to analyse sea ice, marine productivity, and atmosphere-ocean dynamics. Third, we study cryosphere-climate coupling to better predict the effects of cryospheric decline on sea levels and climate.
As co-leader of the Cambridge Computational Paleoclimate group and a member of the CMIP7 Paleoclimate Modelling Intercomparison Project, I collaborate with excellent geochemical labs and modellers globally and locally, including at BAS. Some of our ongoing collaborative projects include understanding Arctic sea ice dynamics, global carbon cycle changes, Earth System Sensitivity, and climate reorganisations using machine learning.
Project Interests
I would be interested in co-developing projects that focus on innovative quantitative approaches to paleoclimate and historical climate research. One key area is in developing new probabilistic proxy “forward models”, particularly for marine-based sediment data such as assemblage counts and new biomarker measurements. Another is creating physics-informed statistical learning techniques that improve paleoclimate data assimilation approaches. Additionally, I am keen to develop projects that statistically pair paleo-proxies with paleoclimate model simulations to explicitly constrain future climate projections. An outside interest involves a data-mining initiative to explore the relationship between recent historical socio-cultural sentiments and climatic impact trends across different regions.