School Seminar - Five million years of Antarctic Circumpolar Current strength variability - Frank Lamy

We are pleased to announce a School Seminar by Frank Lamy on the topic of: Five million years of Antarctic Circumpolar Current strength variability.

Abstract:

The current understanding of Earth's long-term climate evolution suffers a bias towards the Northern Hemisphere, where the majority of Plio-Pleistocene climate records have been developed. Although more recent efforts by the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) have sought to increase the number of long-term sedimentary records from the Southern Hemisphere, there remains an enormous gap in paleoclimate data from the South Pacific, representing the largest surface area and volume fraction of the Southern Ocean and therefore holding the largest capacity for carbon storage in the deep ocean. 

The Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) represents the world's largest ocean current system and impacts global ocean circulation, climate, and Antarctic ice sheet stability. Dr Lamy will discuss changes in ACC strength at glacial-interglacial and longer term Plio-Pleistocene changes. A persistent link between weaker ACC flow, equatorward shifted opal deposition, and reduced atmospheric CO2 during glacial periods first emerged during the Mid-Pleistocene Transition. The strongest ACC flow occurred during warmer-than-present intervals of the Plio-Pleistocene, providing evidence of potentially increasing ACC flow with future climate warming.

Bio:

Frank Lamy is a Senior Research Scientist and the deputy head of the Marine Geology Section at the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, Bremerhaven. Frank is a Scientific Expert in the Helmholtz research program, Topic 2 "Ocean and Cryosphere in climate" focussing on "Warming Climates". 

Dr Lamy studied Geology at the University of Münster and received his PhD at Bremen University in 1998. After a 5-years postdoc in Bremen, he moved as a research scientist to the GFZ Potsdam. He has worked at AWI since 2006.

His primary research interests during the last ~30 years have focused on the reconstruction of paleoenvironmental changes over the past ~5 Ma based on continental margin and open ocean sediments from different paleoclimatologically sensitive regions. He is the author of >120 peer-reviewed publications and nine book chapters. Frank has supervised numerous graduate and postgraduates including 18 PhD students and seven postdocs and has participated in 16 cruises (7 as co-chief scientist) including two ODP/IODP expeditions.