Inaugural lecture series

Professor Natasha Barlow

“I’ve been to the year 3000, Not much has changed, But they live underwater” (Busted, 2003)

Changes in sea level, ice sheets and environments in response to climate change over the past 500,000 years (geologically, the very recent past) have shaped many of the landscapes we see today.  Work in our research group has sought to understand why and how sea-level changes over time, in response to climate and earthquakes, and the resulting coastal and marine landscape response. Understanding the rate and magnitude of environmental change in the recent past also provides important contextual information for offshore wind developments and storylines for future Earth system response.  In this lecture, I will explore how past sea level and environmental research can be used to test the Busted (2003) ‘hypothesis’ and, along the way, highlight some of the work done by the amazing early career researchers I have the absolute pleasure of working with.

Natasha is Professor of Environmental Change in the School of Earth and Environment. She trained as a Geographer, with her formative years (from undergraduate to senior postdoc) spent within the renowned Quaternary research group at Durham University.  She arrived at Leeds in 2016 as a University Academic Fellow. Her research focuses on the rates and magnitudes of past sea level to understand changes in ice sheets, climate and tectonics. Natasha also works alongside industry to ensure that Quaternary research lays the foundations for sustainable offshore wind development, and is interested in how climate change drives the storage of carbon in coastal and marine environments. Natasha is a former leader (2018-2023) of PALSEA, the international palaeo sea-level and ice sheet working group, and currently serves as a member of the PAGES Scientific Steering Committee. Beyond her research, she is captivated by the role of non-academic communication in the climate crisis and acts as a scientific advisor on ‘Meltwater’, an immersive performance focussing on ‘water’ as an environmental disruptor.

Professor Jon Mound

A geophysical journey to the centre of the Earth

Earth is a dynamic planet with global scale movements driven by the escape of heat from its deep interior. Motions of the liquid metal core and solid silicate mantle occur at very different rates and together they impact a variety of observable features on times scales from a few years to a few billion years. The Earth's magnetic and gravitational fields, rotation, and surface shape are all influenced by the dynamics of its deep interior. This talk will cover some of the ways I have investigated the physical processes occurring in the core and mantle, and at the boundary between them, and how we can use observations at the surface to understand what happens thousands of kilometres beneath our feet.

Jon studied Geology and Physics at the University of Toronto and did an MSc and PhD in Physics there as well. After his PhD he held a NSERC postdoctoral research fellowship at the University of British Colombia, followed by positions at the University of Toronto and Harvard. In 2006 he joined the School of Earth and Environment at Leeds as a lecturer in geophysics and is now Professor of Global Geophysics and co-director of the Institute of Geophysics and Tectonics. His research uses a combination of theoretical and computational approaches to investigate the dynamics of the deep Earth and to understand how they impact global scale observables such as the structure and variability of the geomagnetic field.

1. Professor Ben Mills and Professor Amanda Maycock

Monday 3rd June 2024, 5.30 – 6.30pm at Esther Simpson LT 1.01. Followed by a drinks reception in the School of Earth and Environment Foyer.
 

Booking details can be found here

Professor Ben Mills: Making toy planets and trying to keep them alive

 

The history of the Earth is remarkable in many ways. On one hand, it is amazing that we have managed to figure out what the planet was like billions of years ago. On the other hand, we still do not know the answer to so many basic questions, such as why the atmosphere is so rich in oxygen, or how the Earth’s global temperature has remained so stable and comfortable for life. Our own solar system is full of examples of inhospitable worlds, but when we look out into space, we have quickly found planets that appear to be more similar to our own. In this lecture – with the help of our computerised toy planet – I will explain some of the biggest problems we have in understanding the evolution of our world, introduce some of the solutions my group has developed, and speculate on what this means for the existence of habitable worlds elsewhere.

Ben studied mathematics at UEA Norwich and moved to their Environmental Science department for his PhD. He has since worked at the Universities of Exeter and Bristol, before moving to Leeds as an Academic Fellow in 2015. He designs ‘Earth Evolution’ computer models, which aim to explain the changing chemical make-up of Earth’s atmosphere and oceans over the entire history of the planet, and even into the deep future. His research group is now working to simulate how life and planetary environments have shaped each other over time and how they might do so on ‘exoplanets’ outside of our solar system.

Professor Amanda Maycock: Chasing the signal and the noise in Earth’s climate

 

Edward Lorenz famously coined the ‘butterfly effect’ to describe the chaotic nature of Earth’s climate. He posited that a butterfly flapping its wings could lead to a tornado forming many miles away. Interpreting the observed climate record and projecting climate into the future using computer models therefore requires an appreciation of how chaotic variability (noise) interacts with the overall trend of human-caused climate change (signal). Much of the research I conduct concerns understanding the variability that the climate system generates by itself, our ability to accurately capture this variability in state-of-the-art computer climate models, and the implications for projecting future climate change. In this lecture, I will explain the importance of understanding both the signal and the noise of climate using examples from research conducted by the talented early career researchers I have been fortunate to work with.

Amanda studied Physics at the University of Manchester followed by an MSc and PhD in Climate Science at the University of Reading. She undertook postdoctoral research in Cambridge, where she held an AXA Research Fellowship. In 2015 she joined the School of Earth and Environment at Leeds as a NERC Research Fellow. She has since served as Lead Author for the 2018 WMO/UNEP Ozone Assessment Report and the 2021 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Sixth Assessment Report. She co-leads the World Climate Research Programme Atmospheric Processes and their Role in Climate Project and was Director of the Institute for Climate and Atmospheric Science at Leeds from 2020-24. Her research uses observations and computer climate models to investigate the mechanisms that cause climate variability and climate change on timescales spanning seasons to centuries.