AMY GRAY *1,2, JEFF EVANS 1, DAVE RYVES 1 & RIKO NOORMETS 2
1 Geography and Environment, School of Social Sciences and Humanities, Loughborough University, Epinal Way, Loughborough, LE11 3TU; v.a.gray@lboro.ac.uk
2 UNIS, The University Centre in Svalbard, Longyearbyen, Svalbard & Jan Mayen.
Over the last century, the High Arctic has experienced rapid warming at a higher rate than the global average. This makes the Arctic a prime location to study in order to better understand the immediate environmental impacts of climate change. However, unlike more populated parts of the world, the Arctic is relatively sparsely monitored, and as such, documenting environmental changes and their impacts remains challenging.
This project aims to overcome the challenges associated with the lack of high-resolution, long-term environmental monitoring in the Arctic by using the information stored within sediment records as a means of observing historic environmental fluctuations.
Sediment cores have been collected from lake and ocean environments in the Ny-Ålesund area of Svalbard and a range of sedimentological, chemical and ecological proxies will be analysed to decipher past environmental changes in response to changing climate. This will be achieved using advanced multivariate statistical approaches.
By better understanding past climate-driven environmental changes, the aim is to then develop a more accurate model of anticipated future environmental responses to climate change in this region.
Fig 1. Fieldwork conducted on Ossian Sarsvatnet, Kongsfjorden, Svalbard; July 2019.