Read the latest e-news
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- Published: Wednesday, 15 November 2017 15:06
Read about the latest PAGES' news, meetings and opportunities from around the world in this month's e-news.
VICS & LandCover6k products
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- Published: Wednesday, 08 November 2017 16:29
Earlier this week, VICS working group members Matthew Toohey and Michael Sigl had their paper "Volcanic stratospheric sulfur injections and aerosol optical depth from 500 BCE to 1900 CE" published in Earth System Science Data.
This new volcanic reconstruction, describing the new eVolv2k volcanic forcing database for the past 2500 years, is based on improved ice-core records and reconstruction methodologies.
Avid reader to active coordinator
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- Published: Tuesday, 07 November 2017 09:04
PAGES' current guest scientist Dr. Scott St. George can't quite believe he's progressed from reading the PAGES Newsletter (now the Past Global Changes Magazine) to being a working group coordinator.
"Since the beginning of my graduate career, PAGES has been there," St. George said. "My supervisor Brian Luckman was always leaving the PAGES Newsletter in the lab and it was the first time I had the idea that my work was connected to broader initiatives. And 20 years later, I'm supposed to be coordinating things!"
The native of Winnipeg, Canada, is now an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography, Environment and Society at the University of Minnesota, USA, plus coordinator of the PAGES 2k Network and a scientific committee member of the Floods Working Group (FWG).
Media interest in VICS paper
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- Published: Thursday, 19 October 2017 17:32
This week's VICS working group paper "Volcanic suppression of Nile summer flooding triggers revolt and constrains interstate conflict in ancient Egypt", published in Nature Communications, is attracting worldwide media attention.
Authors Joseph Manning, Francis Ludlow, Alexander Stine, William Boos, Michael Sigl and Jennifer Marlon show that the lack of critically important summer flooding in Ptolemaic Egypt (305–30 BCE) correlates with volcanic eruptions, leading to societal unrest.
See how the world media has been covering the story, by clicking the orange "Media coverage" tab, here.
Read the latest e-news
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- Published: Wednesday, 18 October 2017 12:57
Read about the latest PAGES' news, meetings and opportunities from around the world in this month's e-news.
Eruptions and Egyptian unrest
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- Published: Tuesday, 17 October 2017 17:01
Members of PAGES Volcanic Impacts on Climate and Society (VICS) working group believe volcanic eruptions, climate change and the absence of Nile summer flooding caused upheaval in ancient Egypt.
Joseph Manning et al. investigate the impact of eruptive volcanism on the Nile’s ability to flood in their paper "Volcanic suppression of Nile summer flooding triggers revolt and constrains interstate conflict in ancient Egypt" published in Nature Communications today.
The authors combine volcano–climate numerical modeling, ice-core catalogued eruption timings, ancient Egyptian documentation of socio-economic behaviour, and recordings from the Islamic Nilometer (an ancient history of Nile water levels) in their study, which shows that the lack of critically important summer flooding in Ptolemaic Egypt (305–30 BCE) correlates with volcanic eruptions, leading to societal unrest.
"That’s the beauty of these climate records," said Manning. "For the first time, you can actually see a dynamic society in Egypt, not just a static description of a bunch of texts in chronological order. This is of absolutely enormous importance."
Access the paper here. Access all additional information related to this paper, including press releases, the Future Earth blog article, images and FAQs here.
D-O-uble delight for Fischer
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- Published: Wednesday, 11 October 2017 10:19
PAGES congratulates former co-chair Hubertus Fischer on being awarded the 2018 Hans Oeschger Medal, which will be presented at the EGU 2018 General Assembly in Austria in April.
Fischer, who finished his tenure with PAGES at the end of 2016, topped the nominees for outstanding achievements in ice research and/or short term climatic changes (past, present, future). He is pictured celebrating with University of Bern colleagues and students on 10 October.
It tops off an excellent year so far for Fischer, who will also be presented with the Willi Dansgaard Award at the AGU Fall Meeting in New Orleans, USA, in December. We believe it is the first time someone has won both awards within one year and have appropriately named it the D-O-uble (as Dansgaard-Oeschger events are often abbreviated as D–O events).
In his usual modest style, Fischer said he was very humbled and proud to receive this second honor so soon.