Development of ice core analytical methods and proxies for palaeoclimate and climate change research.
Research Area
My research has involved developing a broad range of ice core analytical techniques, including stable water isotopes, gases, and chemical impurities such as ion chromatography and mass spectrometry for elemental analyses. I mainly focus on developing our ice core continuous flow analysis (CFA) system for the efficient analyses of the major components and age-scale development, but also on high-resolution discrete samples for shorter sections to focus on specific events or time-periods. These data can be used to determine the transport of terrestrial, marine, and volcanic species to the ice core and subsequently used to infer palaeoclimate information about the polar regions. By working with climate-modellers and palaeoclimatologists we can then understand past climate changes and constrain future climate predictions.
We have access to a range of ice cores in the BAS national ice core archive and are working with other national and international collaborators, such as the Beyond EPICA Oldest Ice European project. I am interested in both studying ice core records from recent centuries to understand anthropogenic climate change but also to hundreds of millennia to understand larger scale climate system changes.
Project Interests
I would welcome multidisciplinary studentship projects to develop novel methods and proxies (organic or inorganic chemical species) for studying ice cores to assess earth system changes in past climate and improve understanding of how the climate could change in future. The new high-resolution SIWHA ice core will be drilled soon and available to study Southern Ocean CO2 exchange and how westerly winds and sea ice affected this throughout the Holocene. We are also looking to develop novel proxies to study the changes to glacial cycles in the Mid-Pleistocene Transition using the Beyond EPICA Oldest Ice core (<1.5-million-years-old).