Climate: Past, Present & Future

HighPasm project: Understanding the climate & social vulnerability in the Island of Cyprus for the last millennium

Dr. Carole Nehme September 9, 2021

What is this project all about? This project investigates the social responses of the society to environmental stress in the context of climate variability for the last millennium in Cyprus. Human societies had a variable response to changes in climate either due to differences in socioeconomic systems, land use, and health systems. Many health issues in societies are sensitive to both social and ...[Read More]

From mountains to caves: How I found my research niche

Dr. Franziska Lechleitner August 11, 2021

Feature image: The mountains of “home” in upper Ticino, Switzerland.

What makes you unique as a scientist? Most of us are confronted with this question sooner or later in our career, for example when applying for jobs or research grants. The answer is not always easy, especially for Early Career Researchers (ECRs) still developing a strong scientific profile. For me, being able to clearly identify my research niche has been a long process that involved developing i ...[Read More]

An online learning platform for cyclostratigraphy – www.cyclostratigraphy.org

Christian Zeeden, David Vleeschouwer and Matthias Sinnesael August 2, 2021

Feature image: Triangle diagram highlighting the multidisciplinary character of cyclostratigraphy.

Cyclostratigraphers aim to read and understand the effect of climate-driven orbital changes in the geological record through time. In doing so, they start from an important prerequisite: An imprint of insolation variations caused by Earth’s orbital eccentricity, obliquity and/or precession (Milankovitch forcing) can be preserved in the geological rock record. The new www.cyclostratigraphy.org webs ...[Read More]

Bomb 14C – a tracer and time marker of the mid-20th century

Dr. Irka Hajdas and Dr. Quan Hua July 14, 2021

Figure 1. Radiocarbon production and three main drivers of the variable atmospheric 14C content (modified figure [4]).

1950 CE is known as the year zero in the so-called ‘BP time scale.’ The BP stands for, “Before Present,” and has its roots in the development and conventions of radiocarbon dating [1]. The radioactive isotope of carbon (14C) with a half-life of 5700 years [2; 3] is a cosmogenic isotope produced in the atmosphere by secondary cosmic rays (SCR). Thermal neutrons, the SCR particle responsible for the ...[Read More]