About the project
The Westerly Winds are among the main drivers of climate variability in the Southern Hemisphere. This PhD will contribute to the development of a novel Antarctic ice core proxy for reconstructing past westerly wind changes. It involves determining the environmental conditions and mechanisms enabling the transport of particles to Antarctica.
The Southern Hemisphere Westerly Winds are among the main drivers of recent environmental changes in Antarctica. The lack of instrumental long-term wind records prevents a thorough understanding of the impacts of changing winds over Antarctica. Recently, wind-blown diatoms preserved in Antarctic ice cores have been proposed as a proxy for reconstructing past changes in atmospheric circulation.
This PhD project aims to determine the precise environmental conditions and mechanisms that enable winds to remove diatoms from surface waters, their atmospheric transport, and final deposition at Antarctic ice core sites. The PhD candidate will work on the analysis of an unparalleled set of diatom samples collected along a latitudinal transect from the Southern Ocean to the Antarctic ice sheet. These samples include Antarctic marine surface waters, marine aerosols, sea ice, and ice cores. Detailed control of atmospheric and oceanographic conditions when each sample was collected will enable the candidate to explore the environmental conditions and mechanisms favouring diatom removal, transport, and deposition. Determining the precise environmental conditions and mechanisms driving the diatom record variability will contribute to a better quantification of reconstructed parameters, ultimately increasing proxy robustness. A well-constrained proxy will allow us to extend our understanding of the impacts of changing winds on the Antarctic ice sheet into the pre-satellite era, providing critical insights for modelling future climate change scenarios.
This PhD project complements a NERC-funded deep ice core drilling project and a Collaborative Antarctic Science Scheme project, both led by the British Antarctic Survey.
You will also be supervised by organisations other than the University of Southampton, including:
