The Climate Change Ocean Research Group aims to study past and future climate change by focusing on the oceans and their global influence on climate. This is achieved both by collecting palaeoceanographic data and by global circulation modelling.
Marine sediments provide long and continuous records of climate change at a range of timescales.
Palaeoceanographers study global climatic changes ranging from annual resolution to change over thousands of years. The more we understand about our oceans and how they have reacted to global change in the past, the better we will be able to understand global change in the future. The Benguela Current in the South Atlantic is one of the largest upwelling systems in the world. The surface water productivity stimulated by this upwelling currently produces a significant sink for atmospheric carbon dioxide. Site 1083 was recovered from the Walvis Basin in the eastern equatorial South Atlantic Ocean will be used for this study as it monitors the intensity, upwelling and productivity of the Benguela Current.