Utilizing the geological record to constrain the response of marine ecosystems and global carbon cycling to warming and de-oxygenation. Earth history is punctuated by a huge variety of transitions and perturbations in climate, biogeochemical cycling, and ecosystems, some of which may hold direct future-relevant information. In the oceans, these are closely linked in a complex web of feedbacks, as well as to the oxygenation of the ocean and the ultimate geological fate of excessive carbon release ....Utilizing the geological record to constrain the response of marine ecosystems and global carbon cycling to warming and de-oxygenation. Earth history is punctuated by a huge variety of transitions and perturbations in climate, biogeochemical cycling, and ecosystems, some of which may hold direct future-relevant information. In the oceans, these are closely linked in a complex web of feedbacks, as well as to the oxygenation of the ocean and the ultimate geological fate of excessive carbon released into the atmosphere – burial of carbon in sediments. This project will develop a computer model representation of this coupled carbon-climate-life system and test this against the geological record, explore the causes and consequences of carbon release events and extinctions as well as how the ocean floor delivery and preservation of organic carbon responds.Read moreRead less
Glacio-isostatic effects on geodetic data: Ice and sea level implications. Glacio-isostatic (GI) effects are recorded in geological and geodetic data sets and mask other deformational processes. This project builds on past work using geological data with a focus on combining geodetic and geological evidence to improve knowledge of the past ice sheets, separate out effects of past and present deglaciation and develop improved models for the mantle rheology to include time-dependencies in mantle r ....Glacio-isostatic effects on geodetic data: Ice and sea level implications. Glacio-isostatic (GI) effects are recorded in geological and geodetic data sets and mask other deformational processes. This project builds on past work using geological data with a focus on combining geodetic and geological evidence to improve knowledge of the past ice sheets, separate out effects of past and present deglaciation and develop improved models for the mantle rheology to include time-dependencies in mantle response (transient creep in the first instance). The project aims to provide a complete and predictive description of the GI effects on geodetic data, consistent with geological evidence, such that other tectonic, hydrologic and sea-level signals can be estimated free of these effects.Read moreRead less
What caused abrupt climate change events in the past and what can they tell us about the future? This project will improve our understanding of abrupt climate change in the past, present and future. It will dramatically enhance Australia's capacity to use climate models to assess the probability and associated consequences of abrupt climate change in the future.
Australia as the world warmed: our regional response to rapid global warming events in the geological past. Projections of global climate change over the next century are so negative we must look to the Pliocene Epoch, more than 2.5 million years ago, for past analogues. Nonetheless, more recent episodes of rapid global warming during the late Pleistocene might approximate those expected for coming decades. This project will study past Australian regional temperature and rainfall responses to th ....Australia as the world warmed: our regional response to rapid global warming events in the geological past. Projections of global climate change over the next century are so negative we must look to the Pliocene Epoch, more than 2.5 million years ago, for past analogues. Nonetheless, more recent episodes of rapid global warming during the late Pleistocene might approximate those expected for coming decades. This project will study past Australian regional temperature and rainfall responses to these events, on a high-resolution absolute timescale. The necessary analytical technologies are new, meaning a study of this scope could not previously be attempted, and they will be further developed under this project. Outputs will include spatial patterns and lead/lag relationships which can be used to supplement climate model predictions for Australia.Read moreRead less
Deep-sea coral ocean-climate records of the last glacial and recent eras. The project aims to predict the ocean carbon dioxide sink’s long-term capacity and future trajectories of global warming and increasing carbon dioxide. This project will use geochemical proxies encoded in the skeletons of deep-sea corals in the Perth Canyon, Tasman seas, and Antarctica, in the heart of the ocean-climate system, to reveal continuous long-term records of environmental change at annual-decadal resolution for ....Deep-sea coral ocean-climate records of the last glacial and recent eras. The project aims to predict the ocean carbon dioxide sink’s long-term capacity and future trajectories of global warming and increasing carbon dioxide. This project will use geochemical proxies encoded in the skeletons of deep-sea corals in the Perth Canyon, Tasman seas, and Antarctica, in the heart of the ocean-climate system, to reveal continuous long-term records of environmental change at annual-decadal resolution for our recent past (hundreds to thousands of years) and the Last Glacial Maximum. These records are expected to provide a more accurate understanding of Earth’s long-term responses to anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions and global warming.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE130100295
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$373,679.00
Summary
Forecasting the future of flood and drought in Australia using multi-century tree-ring and isotope chronologies from the tropics. The effects of El Nino on Australian floods and droughts in a globally changing climate is unclear because we lack long climate records from the past. This project will measure tree-ring and isotope records using kauri pine to advance our understanding of El Nino's effects on the frequency and intensity of drought and floods in Australia.
Trying times: Millennial to million year luminescence chronologies for improved reconstructions of Australian megafaunal extinctions. The causes of megafaunal extinction in Australia continue to be fiercely debated owing to chronological gaps in the palaeontological record, poorly constrained palaeoenvironmental histories and limited data on long-term faunal responses to climate change prior to human arrival. This project will utilise and advance new luminescence dating methods to provide unpara ....Trying times: Millennial to million year luminescence chronologies for improved reconstructions of Australian megafaunal extinctions. The causes of megafaunal extinction in Australia continue to be fiercely debated owing to chronological gaps in the palaeontological record, poorly constrained palaeoenvironmental histories and limited data on long-term faunal responses to climate change prior to human arrival. This project will utilise and advance new luminescence dating methods to provide unparalleled reconstructions of faunal turnover and environmental change over millennial to million year timescales. The chronologies generated through this work will provide a crucial new perspective on the ongoing megafaunal debate and will be used to test key assumptions underpinning anthropogenic- and climate-driven extinction hypotheses on local, regional and continental scales.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE210101433
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$429,043.00
Summary
From creeping to sliding: controls on Antarctic Ice Sheet flow processes. This project aims to provide new insight into how ice flow processes influence Antarctic ice loss - a serious unsolved problem in predicting how much Antarctica will contribute to sea level rise. Using a state-of-the-art ice sheet model and real-world glaciological observations, this project expects to generate new knowledge of the mechanisms, and environmental and climatic conditions that control ice flow. Expected outcom ....From creeping to sliding: controls on Antarctic Ice Sheet flow processes. This project aims to provide new insight into how ice flow processes influence Antarctic ice loss - a serious unsolved problem in predicting how much Antarctica will contribute to sea level rise. Using a state-of-the-art ice sheet model and real-world glaciological observations, this project expects to generate new knowledge of the mechanisms, and environmental and climatic conditions that control ice flow. Expected outcomes of this project are improved estimates of Antarctica’s contribution to future sea level rise. This project should provide substantial benefits in Australia and internationally, particularly in regions vulnerable to rising sea levels, by producing a sound evidence base for policy and mitigation strategies.Read moreRead less
Understanding total long-term sea-level consequences. This project addresses the urgency in long-term infrastructure planning to understand the long-term "equilibrium" sea-level-change consequences from today’s exceptionally rapid climate change. Understanding this requires detailed sea-level reconstructions back to warm periods with similar CO2 levels to today (~3.5 million years ago), but these remain insufficiently defined. To advance, the project will deliver a next-generation, multi-million ....Understanding total long-term sea-level consequences. This project addresses the urgency in long-term infrastructure planning to understand the long-term "equilibrium" sea-level-change consequences from today’s exceptionally rapid climate change. Understanding this requires detailed sea-level reconstructions back to warm periods with similar CO2 levels to today (~3.5 million years ago), but these remain insufficiently defined. To advance, the project will deliver a next-generation, multi-million-year sea-level reconstruction that includes dynamically evolving (time-dependent) interactions between critical climate factors. This will then be applied with other palaeoclimate data to reconstruct equilibrium relationships between sea level, temperature, and CO2 at currently unattainable precision. Read moreRead less
Deep-sea coral records of Southern Ocean climate and nutrient dynamics . Deep-sea coral and seawater nutrient profiles collected from the Southern Ocean (SO) facing submarine canyons of south-west Australia will be used to provide new insights into the role of the SO overturning circulation in modulating global climate as well as supplying the essential nutrients that make these canyons biodiversity hot-spots for seasonal aggregations of killer and blue whales. This frontier project made possib ....Deep-sea coral records of Southern Ocean climate and nutrient dynamics . Deep-sea coral and seawater nutrient profiles collected from the Southern Ocean (SO) facing submarine canyons of south-west Australia will be used to provide new insights into the role of the SO overturning circulation in modulating global climate as well as supplying the essential nutrients that make these canyons biodiversity hot-spots for seasonal aggregations of killer and blue whales. This frontier project made possible by samples collected using Remote Operated Vehicle (ROV) technology rarely available in Australia, will also help to understand how SO circulation has influenced past changes in global climate and its future role in controlling ocean productivity in a warming world with rapidly increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide. Read moreRead less