Prof C Fogwill
No more applications being accepted
Funded PhD Project (European/UK Students Only)
About the Project
Background and project details:
A key problem for reducing the uncertainty in climate projections is historical records of change are too short to test the skill of climate models, raising concerns over our ability to successfully plan for future change. Published records only allow a robust reconstruction of global temperatures back to around 1850 and appear to show a ‘gradual’ warming trend of around 0.8˚C. However, a wealth of geological, chemical, and biological records (often referred to as ‘natural archives’ or ‘palaeo’) clearly indicate large-scale and often irreversible (centennial to millennial in duration) shifts in the climate system took place in the past. The forcing associated with these changes appears to have been relatively small, implying the associated thresholds (commonly described as ‘tipping points’) are considerably smaller than generally supposed.
Arguably, one of the most significant parts of the climate system in this regard is the Meridional Ocean Circulation (the MOC) which plays a significant role in global climate, including associated changes in atmospheric circulation shifts over the mid-latitudes leading to disruption of the global carbon cycle and potentially triggering circulation changes in the Southern Ocean which has implications for Antarctic Ice sheet stability, therefore global sea level. Unfortunately, at present there is a relative dearth of high-resolution records in the Southern Hemisphere for the onset of the current interglacial (the Holocene) some 11,650 years ago, a period of exceptional warmth across the Southern Ocean and Antarctica, comparable in amplitude to projected anthropogenically-driven change at the end of this. Accurate and precisely dated reconstructions of high-resolved records of past change provide the opportunity to better understand the mechanisms and test atmospheric and coupled models.
To address this the overarching aim of this PhD is to use novel and innovative palaeo climate data approaches to quantify and understand the mechanisms of change in the high-latitudes of the Southern Hemisphere (SH) in a region highly sensitive to changes in the strength of the MOC and explore and their relationship to mid-latitude
atmospheric circulation across Australia and broader region during the Late Holocene. Focusing on a unique site, the Patriot Hills in the southern Atlantic sector of Antarctica (Figure 1), the student will undertake the following two key research objectives:
1. Apply innovative approaches to quantify the magnitude, impact, rate of change and timing of atmospheric changes in over the past 11,650 years as recorded in ice.
2. Develop novel methods to explore the mechanisms and impact of atmospheric and surface ocean changes over the mid-latitudes through the analysis of marine biomarkers captured in ice.
3. Integrate these records with current and emerging oceanographic and model reconstructions of the South Atlantic and Southern Ocean to examine ice-ocean-atmosphere teleconnections2,3.
For additional information please see the attachment within the studentship advert (FNS GS 2018-01) on http://www.keele.ac.uk/pgresearch/studentships/
Funding Notes
Funding support is provided as follows;
100% UK/EU tuition fees for 3 years commencing Academic year
2018/2019. Stipend support for three years at Research Council
rates (2018//9 stipend £14,777 per annum). Funding for
consumables and conference attendance is available.
Source of funding: Keele University, Faculty of Natural Sciences
International students may apply, but are required to cover the difference between home fees and international level fees.
Eligibility Criteria;
BSc in (Geoscience or Physical Geography or chemistry / geochemistry minimum degree classification 2i or equivalent.
Please quote FNS GS 2018-01 on your application.
References
Key references
1 Mayewski, P. A. et al. State of the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Climate System (SASOCS). Reviews of Geophysics 47, doi:10.1029/2007RG000231 (2009).
2 Weber, M. E. et al. Millennial-scale variability in Antarctic ice-sheet discharge during the last deglaciation. Nature 510, 134-138, doi:10.1038/nature13397 (2014).
3 Fogwill, C. J. et al. Antarctic ice sheet discharge driven by atmosphere-ocean feedbacks at the Last Glacial Termination. Scientific Reports 7, 39979, doi:10.1038/srep39979
http://www.nature.com/articles/srep39979 - supplementary-information (2017).
4 Turney, C. S. M. et al. Late Pleistocene and early Holocene change in the Weddell Sea: a new climate record from the Patriot Hills, Ellsworth Mountains, West Antarctica. Journal of Quaternary Science 28, 697-704 (2013).
5 Rasmussen, S. O. et al. A new Greenland ice core chronology for the last glacial termination. Journal of Geophysical Research 111, doi:10.1029/2005JD006079 (2006).
6 EPICA. One-to-one coupling of glacial climate variability in Greenland and Antarctica. Nature 444, 195-198 (2006).
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