Research Interests

My current environmental research interests include

(i.a) Statistical climatology - Mountain climates Research into European climatic change is taking place as one aspect of the EU Project MOLAR . The MOLAR project focuses on lake sites as monitors of acidification, pollution and climate change. It brings together expertise from a wide range of leading laboratories in thirteen European countries. The sites selected for study represent the widest possible geographical distribution of remote mountain lakes in Europe. Mountain regions are of great importance to mankind. They are ecologically complex and react sensitively to climate change. Air temperatures in the European Alpine region have been increasing at about 0.01 kyr over the last hundred years, i.e. at approximately twice the mean Northern Hemisphere rate of increase. It is therefore of particular importance to assess the degree of regional climate change to which such mountain regions and their terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems are now being subjected. Agusti-Panareda, A. and Thompson, R., 2002. Reconstructing air temperature at eleven remote alpine and arctic lakes in Europe from 1781 to 1997 AD. Journal of Paleolimnology, 28, 1; p. 7-23. PDF

(i.b) Statistical climatology - Ice-cover Research into the relationship between lake ice-cover and climate is also taking place with CHILL and NERC research funding. In the remote mountain lakes used in CHILL climate reconstructions ice-cover can persist well into summer. Here at Estany dels Forats 2457 m [photo by Mrs C.L. Thompson] partial ice-cover has been delayed following a somewhat cooler May/June than usual. R. Thompson, D. Price, N. Cameron, V. Jones, C. Bigler, P. Rosén, R.I. Hall, J. Catalan, J. Garcia, J. Weckstrom and A. Korhola, 2005. Quantitative Calibration of Remote Mountain-lake Sediments as Climatic Recorders of Air Temperature and Ice-cover duration. Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine Research Vol. 37, No. 4,626�635. PDF

(ii) Magnetism of the Chinese loess and paleosols The rock magnetic properties of the Chinese loess and paleosols constitute a unique and sensitive record of East Asian paleoclimate through the Quaternary Period. Systematic variations in the concentration and grain size of the magnetic minerals in these sediments have produced systematic variations in the magnetic susceptibility signal, which can be easily and rapidly measured at many sites across the Loess Plateau. We reconstruct past changes in rainfall and monsoon activity for this region from the susceptibility variations. We calibrate the susceptibility record using the modern relationship between rainfall and pedogenic susceptibility on the Loess Plateau. Our rainfall reconstructions identify enhanced summer monsoonal activity in the Chinese Loess Plateau region in the early Holocene and the last interglaciation.

(iii) Sediment erosion Research into sediment erosion is taking place as part of the NERC Project HULAP. The main aim of the study is to characterise and quantify sediment flux in three catchments within the Humber region and hence to quantify changes in sediment flux to the marine environment via the Humber estuary during the Holocene. The variations in lake sediment accumulation in each of the catchments is to be used as a history of past erosion. Our preliminary studies have possibly located the largest sub- aerial Holocene lacustrine valley fill ever discovered in Britain. These previously unmapped deposits, at the head of Semer Water in Raydale in the central Pennines, are estimated to contain some 10 million cubic meters of sediment. They undoubtedly record major episodes of soil and peat erosion. The blanket peat erosion in parts of the Semer Water catchment is typical of many parts of the Pennines. It provides a mechanism for delivering organic carbon to the North Sea. We are able to estimate this organic carbon flux at 50 g/m a

(iv) Low-temperature magnetism The magnetic properties of minerals at low (1.7K) temperatures are being studied and used to investigate the properties of marine cores from the west coast of Scotland as records of glacial/interglacial cycles and of major iceberg-drop stone events.

(v) Phenology Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh. Phenological results from the 1800s show good relationships between the average first flowering dates of 66 taxa and air temperatures in the preceeding few months. "Phenological Monitoring at Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh" G.H. Harper, D.G. Mann & R. Thompson SIBBALDIA (2005 No 2. 33-45) Thompson R. and Clark, R.M., 2006 Spatio-temporal modelling and assessment of within-species phenological variability using thermal time methods, International Journal of Biometeorology. 50(5) 312-322. PDF

(vi) Future climate change The world's most climate sensitive lake? Water temperature modelling in collaboration with the Institute of Limnology, Austrian Academy of Sciences, predicts a rise of 12 ^oC in the epilimnion temperatures for this site on the northern slope of the Austrian Alps by AD 2070.