QUEST Theme 2 - QUEST Deglaciation (Climate and biogeochemical cycles during the last deglaciation) Project

Introduction

QUEST-Deglaciation is part of the QUEST programme, Theme 2, funded by NERC. It is a 3-year collaboration between the universities of Bristol, Southampton, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Wales, Oxford and East Anglia, Imperial College London, University College London, and the British Antarctic Survey. The goals of the project are to develop a fuller understanding of what has driven changes in climate, atmospheric composition and biogeochemical cycles during the period from the peak of the last ice age until recent times, and to thoroughly evaluate process-based Earth system model simulations for this period.

In the past 20,000 years, Earth's climate has changed from a full ice age to a warm period, with episodes of climate instability of varying duration and intensity. The causes and mechanisms of these climate changes, and of pre-industrial changes in greenhouse gases and dust, are not fully understood. There are physical (orbital) controls, but evidence indicates that biogeochemical cycles are also important. This project aims to 'predict the past', using climate models with dynamic global vegetation models to simulate land-atmosphere exchanges that control atmospheric composition (affecting CO2, methane, volatile hydrocarbons, and also dust and soot).

As for Quaternary QUEST, the project team will also compile a global synthesis of palaeodata from sediment cores, reconstructing in greater detail the changes in the land surface since the last glaciation, and will use this data set to assess the success of the models.

Availability of data and file format

Data are stored in the BADC QUEST Deglaciation project data archive.

The data filenames should follow the BADC File Name convention and the data file format should be NetCDF or NASA-Ames.

Access to data and information

Please refer to the QUEST Conditions of Access page for details on access restrictions.

Links

QUEST deglaciation website - http://www.bridge.bris.ac.uk/projects/deglaciation

Citation

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Date of citation

Who to contact

QUEST Deglaciation is headed by Prof Paul Valdes at the University of Bristol, with contributions from 13 co-investigators at the Universities of Southampton, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Swansea and Oxford, Imperial College London, University College London, UEA and the British Antarctic Survey.

Each QUEST project will have a designated "data co-ordinator" to ensure good communication with the QUEST core team/BADC regarding data issues, and to ensure that each project meets its data provision obligations. The data co-ordinator for the QUEST deglaciation project is Prof Paul Valdes.

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