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Head of School of Earth & Ocean Sciences and Research Professor, Cardiff University

I am Head of the School of Earth and Ocean Sciences at Cardiff University, with research expertise in ocean circulation variability and its interaction with global climate.

I approach this theme by studying the causes and scale of past climate variability. This is achieved through the development, application and integrated analysis of sedimentary, isotopic and geochemical proxies. These each quantitatively carry the physical signals of differing components of the climate system, for instance surface ocean conditions (thermal structure, salinity) and the flow and hydrography of deep ocean currents, during key periods of past climate change.

Among my most recent striking results are the discoveries of a multidecadal coupling between surface and deep ocean change in the North Atlantic over the past two centuries and a deep ocean response to the 8.2 kyr rapid climate change event. My ongoing projects include a focus on the transfer of warm and salty waters to the Atlantic Ocean by Agulhas leakage around southern Africa, and the sensitivity of the Atlantic overturning circulation, and therefore European climates, to such leakage.

I have completed more than 35 research cruises in coastal waters of the UK and continental margin of North West Europe and also further afield in the North and South Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. I am UK representative of the International Past Global Change Study (IMAGES), Institutional Director of the Climate Change Consortium of Wales and leader for research within the theme 'Marine and Atmospheric Systems and Climate Change'. I am also a member of the Cardiff University Sustainable Places Research Institute.

Experience

  • 2009–present
    Professor of Palaeoceanography, School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, Cardiff University

Education

  • 1993 
    University of Southampton/Institute of Oceanographic Sciences, Ph.D. NERC, CASE Studentship, Marine Biogeochemistry