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"To determine with quantifiable precision whether the magnitude and rate of 20th Century climate change exceeds the natural variability of European climate over the last millennium"

Millennium is an EU funded project involving scientists at 40 universities and research institutes within Europe. The project has one main objective, stated above. At Exeter we are working with colleagues from the University of Southampton and the NERC Isotope Geosciences Laboratory at Nottingham. We will be producing palaeoclimatic data from a lake in western Iceland and contributing this data to climate modellers who will feed this information into a number of models in order to answer the above objective.

The study site is Baulárvallavatn, a lake located on the Snaefellsnes Peninsula, western Iceland (N: 64°54' W: 22°53'). Baulárvallavatn is situated at 196 m above sea level and is approximately 46 m deep.

Baulárvallavatn, west Iceland

Fieldwork was carried out in June/July 2006 and April/May 2007 and a number of sediment cores were obtained from the lake.

In order to produce data to put into the climate models, continuous quantitative records must be produced from the sediment core. Contiguous sampling of the sediments representing the last 1000 years will be undertaken at as high resolution as possible (sub-decadal).

Analyses to be carried out on the sediments include:

• Chironomid analysis
• Chronological analyses (short-lived radioisotopes; radiocarbon; tephra) (working with Millennium subgroup 5)
• Diatom analysis (Umeå University)
• Diatom oxygen isotopes (with NIGL)
• Sedimentological analyses (XRF; %C; LOI; particle size; magnetic susceptibility)
  

People working on the project include:

• At Exeter: Prof. Chris Caseldine, Dr. Naomi Holmes and Gareth Thompson
• At Southampton: Dr. Pete Langdon
• At Nottingham (NIGL): Prof. Melanie Leng

A PDF of a poster presented at the Millennium Milestone 1 meeting can be seen by clicking here.

Initial results from the project will be presented at the Arctic Workshop in Iceland (May 2-5 2007) and at the Subfossil Chironomid Workshop also in Iceland (May 7-8 2007).

Home | Study Site | Fieldwork | Lab Analyses | People & Contact Information

Disclaimer: The thoughts and views expressed in these webpages are those of the author (unless otherwise stated) and are not those of the Millennium Project or of the University of Exeter.

Last updated June 2008.
Created by N.Holmes, August 2006.