AG-223 Arctic Climate Change: Past to Future

Course requirements

60 ECTS within general natural science, of which 30 ECTS within the field of geology/geosciences. The applicant must be enrolled in a programme at Bachelor level, or document that the courses are approved into the applicant’s current study program.

The course should be combined with AG-211 Arctic Marine Geology (15 ECTS) and the courses are designed to complement each other.

Academic content

Arctic regions are disproportionally affected by recent, human-driven climate warming due to feedback mechanisms like polar amplification, and an intrinsic connectivity to large-scale, global processes such as the thermohaline circulation. At the same time, the shortness of the observational period and the stochasticity of the natural system hinder a sole reliance on numerical models to project future climate necessary for appropriate adaptation and mitigation strategies. By providing insights into past parallels, geological archives such as the seabed and sedimentary rock record can bridge this knowledge gap. This course focuses on highlighting climatic change in the Circumpolar North, from the past into the future. A special emphasis is placed on utilizing the natural laboratory and unique archive of Arctic climate change that is Svalbard, for example the stratigraphic succession that records Greenhouse to Icehouse transitions.This hands-on course provides an overview of Earth’s climate through time from an Arctic perspective. It covers climate drivers and processes and provides a comprehensive overview of climate histories. This includes recent climate in the Anthropocene, as well as Quaternary glacial to interglacial changes, and Cretaceous-Palaeogene greenhouse conditions, with a focus on Arctic environments both terrestrial and marine. Following these geological perspectives, future projections and their implications are examined. The course is taught in modules corresponding to major themes (Cretaceous-Palaeogene; Quaternary; Anthropocene; Future). Approaches to deciphering past climates and environments, such as physical, biogenic, and geochemical proxies are reviewed, discussed, and applied in marine and terrestrial settings. Simple numerical models are used to understand climate drivers and factors. Emphasis is placed on gathering a practical, comprehensive and critical understanding of climate change through time through an Arctic lens and its relevance to a future warmer Earth. This will be achieved through fieldwork and laboratory work together with instruction through state-of-the-art lectures, the study of literature, student-led seminars, and discussions. Extensive practical knowledge will be gained through the analysis of marine and terrestrial records from Svalbard, encompassing both fieldwork and labwork.

Learning outcomes

Upon completing the course, the student will have a good understanding of the importance of the Arctic as a bellwether for global climate change, and Arctic climate histories through geological time, from the Cretaceous to the present and into the future. They will also have valuable knowledge of methods employed in reconstructing Earth’s climate and environments from marine and terrestrial archives.

This course builds primary competencies applicable to higher-level geoscience fields relevant to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals: SDG13 Climate Action; SDG14 Life Below Water; SDG15 Life on LandThis course specifically addresses the following UN Sustainability Development Goals: SDG13 Climate Action.

Upon completing the course, the students will:

Learning activities

This course will use a combination of various and varied activities to ensure deep learning, while providing students with hands-on practical experience. Activities include state-of-the-art lectures, seminars, and fieldwork. Every 2-3 weeks, students will attend a student-led seminar where they will discuss recent literature and concepts discussed in the course. Assignments will include fieldwork/lab reports, presentations, and a final exam.  

Specific activities in course modules are outlined below:

Cretaceous – Paleogene paleoclimate module

Fieldwork

Daytrips on snowmobile:

Day 1 Adventdalen: Mesozoic anoxic events and glendonite hunting  

Day 2 Longyearvaley/visit to the coal mine: Paleogene climate and coal deposits

Excursion

Day 1: Isfjord Radjo (linked with lake coring for Quaternary palaeoclimate module)

The Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum can be recognized in sedimentary succession cropping out in Svalbard today. In this module, students will prepare for fieldwork through the study of literature in tandem with lectures on the climatic histories of Svalbard through time.

Quaternary palaeoclimate module

Fieldwork: 

Day 1: Isfjord Radio (linked with Paleogene module)

Day 2-3: Day or overnight trip(s) with boat; sediment (gravity/multi/or box) core recovery from nearby fjords; e.g., Isfjorden, Billefjorden, etc.

Sediment cores from Svalbard provide long term, continuous and high- resolution records of climate and environmental change that span from the late glacial through the Holocene. In this module, students will experience both lacustrine and marine fieldwork to retrieve long-term archives of Quaternary environmental change. The students will prepare for fieldwork through study of literature on lake sediment paleoclimate reconstruction in Svalbard lakes and lectures on Svalbard lakes as paleoclimate archives; they will also prepare by studying literature, and be given lectures on marine-based palaeoclimate histories from around Svalbard and the Barents Sea. Field work planning will focus on core site selection and preparation of field gear. Fieldwork will focus on recovery of sediment cores using multiple sediment coring techniques. Subsequent laboratory analysis of the cores will focus on core handling, processing and sampling for a range of standard physical, chemical and biogenic proxies that are utilized in terrestrial- and marine-based paleoclimate reconstruction.

Anthropocene module

Fieldwork: Day or overnight trip(s) with boat (linked with Quaternary palaeoclimate module) 

Day 1-2: sediment (gravity/multi/or box) core recovery from nearby fjords; e.g., Isfjorden, Billefjorden, etc. 

Fjords represent high-resolution archives of climate change. In this module, students will prepare for fieldwork through study of literature of marine-based palaeoclimate reconstructions and lectures on marine palaeoclimate. Fieldwork planning will include core site selection and preparation of field gear. Fieldwork will encompass the recovery of short marine sediment cores that cover recent changes through the Anthropocene. Recovered materials will be handled and analysed by the students, including opening, and describing. Subsequently, students will process subsamples of the cores for standard physical, chemical, and biogenic proxies routinely used in marine palaeoclimate research. 

Future climate module

In this module, students will explore climate projections into the near and distant future. This will be accomplished by a combination of lectures and the utilization of simple climate models and simulations that highlight climate drivers and feedback mechanisms (e.g., Daisyworld). 

 

Course materials/Curriculum

Course materials will primarily include recent peer-reviewed papers, as well as the following resources:

• IPCC, 2022. Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability
• Ruddiman, W.F., 2014. Earth’s Climate: Past and Future 3rd ed. 
• Geoscientific Atlas of Svalbard
• Necessary software for the course includes the freeware C2 for plotting palaeoclimate data; simple models of climate change are available as freeware (e.g., through resources such as serc.carleton.edu)

Compulsory learning activities

All compulsory learning activities must be approved in order to sit the exam.

• Written report and presentation (group-work) counting 50% of grade

Assessment

All assessments must be passed in order to pass the course.

Each assessment is graded, and subsequently combined into a single grade. Partial grades for each assessment will be available.