Changing Landscapes Research Group

• Introduction
• Reconstructing the Past
• Monitoring the Present
• Predicting the Future
• Research & Outreach Activities
• Consultancy Services
• Recent Staff Publications

Reconstructing the Past

Due to the lack of instrumental climatic records dated prior to c. 1750, few quantified observations of past climate and associated environmental conditions exist for much of the Historic and Prehistoric periods. As a consequence, alternative methods of reconstructing ancient environmental conditions are used to appreciate the spatial and temporal variations of climate in the past. Proxy records are one such approach, where geological/sedimentological/biological records provide lines of evidence that are indirect records of past climate (such as the use of oxygen isotope records from arctic ice cores and deep sea sediments used to infer global climate change over the last c. 500,000yrs). Such techniques can be used in a number of ways to enhance our understanding of the past, such as the quantified reconstructions of past sea-level change, temperature and precipitation over timescales of hundreds, thousands and indeed millions of years, whilst also providing an insight into human activity in the early Historic and Prehistoric periods. Once derived, such information can be used to quantify and model past landscape change, which can also in turn assist in distinguishing between contemporary natural and human-induced climate change.

Photo: sedimentary coring and subsequent laboratory analysis of a late-Glacial stratigraphic sequence from the Gordano Valley, north Somerset.

From the students: