Objective
The primary goal of the proposal is to advance understanding of the governing mechanisms and inter-hemispheric coupling involved in abrupt climate change. Abrupt climate change involves complex non-linear interactions between all components of the global climate system. Such changes have been caused by natural factors in the past but could in the future be triggered by anthropogenic forcing. The proposal will exploit past abrupt change in order to inform on future risks. We propose to synchronise the Law Dome (Antarctica) ice core record to the state-of-the-art Greenland ice core chronology (GICC05) during the most prominent abrupt climate change within the current interglacial period (the ‘8.2 ka event’) and also during the sequence of abrupt climate changes which preceded the last deglaciation. The core offers unrivalled temporal resolution and dating precision for a southern hemisphere record. Rapid global variations in methane gas concentration will be used as dating ties for these synchronisations. The project will lever from the accurately dated Law Dome record to obtain a broad inter-hemispheric view of abrupt climate change. The palaeoclimate data will be interpreted alongside transient climate model simulations of abrupt climate change and integrated with those simulations. The applicant has strong experience in interpretation of southern hemisphere records and in the synthesis of palaeoclimate data. The modeling component of the project and hosting at the leading European centre for the study of Greenland records of abrupt climate change will broaden his expertise and cement his international research career. The new skills brought to Europe and multidisciplinary approach of the project offer strong potential to catalyse lasting collaborations and advance our ability to model future climate change and project its risks to social, economic and natural systems.
Fields of science
Call for proposal
FP7-PEOPLE-2012-IIF
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Funding Scheme
MC-IIF - International Incoming Fellowships (IIF)Coordinator
1165 Kobenhavn
Denmark