Professor Siwan Davies | |
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| Born | Newport, Pembrokeshire, Wales |
| Language | Welsh, English |
| Nationality | Welsh |
| Education | Royal Holloway, University of London |
| Genre | Academic |
| Subject | Geography |
Siwan Davies FLSW is a Welsh professor of Physical Geography in the department of science at Swansea University.
Davies' research focus is to analyze past climate change and to reconstruct past climate changes. Together with a team of lecturing staff, technicians, PhD students and post doctoral researchers Davies is looking at rapid climatic changes. One of the challenges to understand why these changes occur is understanding where these events happen, are there triggers in the oceans or are there triggers in the atmosphere? By analyzing ash layers that have been spread across and therefore incorporated into ice and terrestrial matter from erupted volcanoes. By analyzing the microscopic ash particles in these matters Davies and her team can measure differences and similarities in changes that have occurred. These findings help to date and explain when these changes happened and why. By understanding what happened in the past will give them insight into what may happen in the future. Davies and her team are working closely with the ice and climate group at the University of Copenhagen as well as UK institutions such as Bangor and the University of Saint Andrews. [1]
Davies is currently working in collaboration with scientists from 14 different countries to excavate ice from the northwest of Greenland as part of the North Greenland Eemian Ice Drilling (Neem) project. [2] The ice will be retrieved in layers as far down as 8000 ft. The findings within this excavation will include evidence of organic materials as well as air bubbles that will be an indication of greenhouse gases that could have been found in the atmosphere over 100,000 years ago. [3] Davies research on minuscule ash particles within the layers of ice, will help create a timeline of volcanic eruptions, which will help compare and analyze climatic evidence recorded in the Greenland ice with that preserved in the deep sea. [3]
S4C filmed a series 'Her yr Hinsawdd' documenting Davies experience in meeting communities in Greenland and the Maldives affected by climate changes and in particular the ice caps melting. [4]
Siwan Davies is also an advocate for promoting women in STEM, speaking at events like soapbox science in Swansea, 2014. [5] [6] She is a founding committee member of Swansea Science Grll and SwanStemWomen.
| Year from | Year to | Position | Organisation |
| 2016 | 2016 | President of Geography section [8] | British Science Association |
| 2015 | Present | Elected Fellow [9] | Learned Society for Wales |
| 2012 | Present | Professor of Physical Geography | Swansea University |
| 2011 | 2012 | Reader | Swansea University |
| 2008 | 2011 | Senior Lecturer | Swansea University |
| 2004 | 2008 | Lecturer | Swansea University |
| 2003 | 2004 | Post-doctoral research assistant | University of Copenhagen |
| 2002 | 2003 | Post-doctoral research assistant | Stockholm University |
The Holocene is the current geological epoch. It began approximately 9,700 years before the Common Era (BCE). It follows the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene together form the Quaternary period. The Holocene has been identified with the current warm period, known as MIS 1. It is considered by some to be an interglacial period within the Pleistocene Epoch, called the Flandrian interglacial.
The Younger Dryas, which occurred circa 12,900 to 11,700 years BP, was a return to glacial conditions which temporarily reversed the gradual climatic warming after the Last Glacial Maximum, which lasted from circa 27,000 to 20,000 years BP. The Younger Dryas was the last stage of the Pleistocene epoch that spanned from 2,580,000 to 11,700 years BP and it preceded the current, warmer Holocene epoch. The Younger Dryas was the most severe and longest lasting of several interruptions to the warming of the Earth's climate, and it was preceded by the Late Glacial Interstadial, an interval of relative warmth that lasted from 14,670 to 12,900 BP.
Eldgjá is a volcano and a canyon in Iceland. Eldgjá is part of the Katla volcano; it is a segment of a 40 kilometres (25 mi) long chain of volcanic craters and fissure vents that extends northeast away from Katla volcano almost to the Vatnajökull ice cap. This fissure experienced a major eruption around 939 CE, which was the largest effusive eruption in recent history. It covered about 780 square kilometres (300 sq mi) of land with 18.6 cubic kilometres (4.5 cu mi) of lava from two major lava flows.
The Eemian was the interglacial period which began about 130,000 years ago at the end of the Penultimate Glacial Period and ended about 115,000 years ago at the beginning of the Last Glacial Period. It corresponds to Marine Isotope Stage 5e. Although sometimes referred to as the "last interglacial", it was the second-to-latest interglacial period of the current Ice Age, the most recent being the Holocene which extends to the present day. The prevailing Eemian climate was, on average, around 1 to 2 degrees Celsius warmer than that of the Holocene. During the Eemian, the proportion of CO2 in the atmosphere was about 280 parts per million.
The Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), also referred to as the Last Glacial Coldest Period, was the most recent time during the Last Glacial Period that ice sheets were at their greatest extent 26,000 and 20,000 years ago. Ice sheets covered much of Northern North America, Northern Europe, and Asia and profoundly affected Earth's climate by causing a major expansion of deserts, along with a large drop in sea levels.
The Hoxnian Stage was a middle Pleistocene stage of the geological history of the British Isles. It was an interglacial which preceded the Wolstonian Stage and followed the Anglian Stage. It is equivalent to Marine Isotope Stage 11. Marine Isotope Stage 11 started 424,000 years ago and ended 374,000 years ago. The Hoxnian is divided into sub-stages Ho I to Ho IV.
Mount Moulton is a 40-kilometre-long (25 mi) complex of ice-covered shield volcanoes, standing 25 kilometres (16 mi) east of Mount Berlin in the Flood Range, Marie Byrd Land, Antarctica. It is named for Richard S. Moulton, chief dog driver at West Base. The volcano is of Pliocene age and is presently inactive.
The Holocene Climate Optimum (HCO) was a warm period in the first half of the Holocene epoch, that occurred in the interval roughly 9,500 to 5,500 years BP, with a thermal maximum around 8000 years BP. It has also been known by many other names, such as Altithermal, Climatic Optimum, Holocene Megathermal, Holocene Optimum, Holocene Thermal Maximum, Hypsithermal, and Mid-Holocene Warm Period.
Tephrochronology is a geochronological technique that uses discrete layers of tephra—volcanic ash from a single eruption—to create a chronological framework in which paleoenvironmental or archaeological records can be placed. Such an established event provides a "tephra horizon". The premise of the technique is that each volcanic event produces ash with a unique chemical "fingerprint" that allows the deposit to be identified across the area affected by fallout. Thus, once the volcanic event has been independently dated, the tephra horizon will act as time marker. It is a variant of the basic geological technique of stratigraphy.
Lautaro is an active subglacial stratovolcano located in Chilean Patagonia, in the northern part of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field. Its summit rises roughly 2,400 m (7,900 ft) above the average surface of the ice cap plateau.
Mentolat is an ice-filled, 6 km (4 mi) wide caldera in the central portion of Magdalena Island, Aisén Province, Chilean Patagonia. This caldera sits on top of a stratovolcano which has generated lava flows and pyroclastic flows. The caldera is filled with a glacier.
Aguilera is a stratovolcano in southern Chile, which rises above the edge of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field. It is a remote volcano that was identified as such in 1985, but the first ascent only occurred in 2014, making it the last unclimbed major Andean volcano.
In climatology, the 8.2-kiloyear event was a sudden decrease in global temperatures that occurred approximately 8,200 years before the present, or c. 6,200 BC, and which lasted for the next two to four centuries. It defines the start of the Northgrippian age in the Holocene epoch. The cooling was significantly less pronounced than during the Younger Dryas cold period that preceded the beginning of the Holocene. During the event, atmospheric methane concentration decreased by 80 ppb, an emission reduction of 15%, by cooling and drying at a hemispheric scale.
Bond events are North Atlantic ice rafting events that are tentatively linked to climate fluctuations in the Holocene. Eight such events have been identified. Bond events were previously believed to exhibit a roughly c. 1,500-year cycle, but the primary period of variability is now put at c. 1,000 years.
Reclus, also written as Reclús, is a volcano located in the Southern Patagonian Ice Field, Chile. Part of the Austral Volcanic Zone of the Andes, its summit rises 1,000 metres (3,300 ft) above sea level and is capped by a crater about 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) wide. Close to the volcano lies the Amalia Glacier, which is actively eroding Reclus.
The 1808 mystery eruption is one or potentially multiple unidentified volcanic eruptions that resulted in a significant rise in stratospheric sulfur aerosols, leading to a period of global cooling analogous to the Year Without a Summer in 1816.
The Campanian Ignimbrite eruption was a major volcanic eruption in the Mediterranean during the late Quaternary, classified 7 on the Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI). The event has been attributed to the Archiflegreo volcano, the 12-by-15-kilometre-wide caldera of the Phlegraean Fields, located 20 km (12 mi) west of Mount Vesuvius under the western outskirts of the city of Naples and the Gulf of Pozzuoli, Italy. Estimates of the date and magnitude of the eruption(s), and the amount of ejected material have varied considerably during several centuries the site has been studied. This applies to most significant volcanic events that originated in the Campanian Plain, as it is one of the most complex volcanic structures in the world. However, continued research, advancing methods, and accumulation of volcanological, geochronological, and geochemical data have improved the dates' accuracy.
Monte Burney is a volcano in southern Chile, part of its Austral Volcanic Zone which consists of six volcanoes with activity during the Quaternary. This volcanism is linked to the subduction of the Antarctic Plate beneath the South America Plate and the Scotia Plate.
Mount Berlin is a glacier-covered volcano in Marie Byrd Land, Antarctica, 100 kilometres (62 mi) from the Amundsen Sea. It is a roughly 20-kilometre-wide (12 mi) mountain with parasitic vents that consists of two coalesced volcanoes: Berlin proper with the 2-kilometre-wide (1.2 mi) Berlin Crater and Merrem Peak with a 2.5-by-1-kilometre-wide crater, 3.5 kilometres (2.2 mi) away from Berlin. The summit of the volcano is 3,478 metres (11,411 ft) above sea level. It has a volume of 200 cubic kilometres (48 cu mi) and rises from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. It is part of the Marie Byrd Land Volcanic Province. Trachyte is the dominant volcanic rock and occurs in the form of lava flows and pyroclastic rocks.
The preboreal oscillation (PBO) was a short cooling period within the preboreal stage of the Holocene epoch.
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