Dr. Brice Rea and Dr. Matteo Spagnolo from Geography and Environment's Cryosphere and Climate Change group have been awarded a Leverhulme Trust International Network Grant funded for 3 years (£120k)
For this project, Dr. Brice Rea and Dr. Matteo Spagnolo of Geography and Environment's Cryosphere and Climate Change group will lead an international team in investigating the timing and magnitude of the climate response to the change in the North Atlantic Ocean during the Younger Dryas using palaeo-glacier derived climate proxy data. Palaeo-glaciers will be reconstructed using field evidence and numerical techniques. This allows either the mean summer temperature or (more importantly) precipitation to be derived. The International Network comprises glaciologists, geochronologists and climate modellers from various European universities.
The glaciologists in the Network will develop a robust and consistent data set by applying a common methodology to key sites for which Younger Dryas moraines have been identified and dated. For these sites the geochronologists will re-calibrate dates and consolidate these onto a common timescale to enable correlation across the study area. Climatologists will use these data to test and refine palaeo-climate models for the Younger Dryas.
The project is the frontpage item of the Leverhulme Trust's January 2013 letter: http://www.leverhulme.ac.uk/news/newsletter.cfm
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