Climate: Past, Present & Future

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]

Feeling the Heat: The Grilled Earth

Francisco José Cuesta-Valero, Almudena García-García, Hugo Beltrami and Joel Finnis July 1, 2021

Figure 1: Permafrost wall in Herschel Island. Permafrost thawing is a potential contributor to climate change and a risk for northern communities. Source: Wikimedia Commons. Photo: Boris Radosavljevic.

Nowadays, there are plenty of media reports about the impacts of climate change around the world. Glaciers are disappearing, gigantic craters form in Siberia as the previously frozen ground thaws, the sea is threatening to swallow entire islands, floods cause large damages to people and economy, heat waves periodically destroy crops and can reach dangerous levels for people’s health. And this is o ...[Read More]