Brendan Moran, David Boutt, and colleagues recently published a study that leveraged a hydrological isotope tracer analysis to investigate connections between water movement, its age, and deposits of lithium in an extremely dry region in South America. They concluded that it is important to protect the various water conduits—streams, rivers, seeps in order to manage systems in the region and other similar environments around the world. See more in the PLOS Water paper and UMass news release.

The 52nd Arctic Workshop will be held on the UMass-Amherst campus Wednesday through Saturday March 13-16, 2024. The schedule:

Wednesday March 13 – evening Ice Breaker and Welcome
Thursday and Friday March 14-15 – talks and poster sessions
Friday Night – March 15 – Workshop Dinner and Keynote Speaker
Saturday March 16th – Morning talks ending at noon.
Saturday March 16th —Optional afternoon local Quaternary field trip and boxed lunch.

Click here for registration information.

The international office of the Climate and Cryosphere (CliC) project, a core initiative of the World Climate Research Program (WCRP) was recently established at UMass. CliC will facilitate new and emerging science initiatives, coordinate outreach to the international climate-science community and engage the general public in understanding the implications of ongoing changes in climate and the cryosphere. Read about the project in the UMass Amherst news release.

Rob DeConto has been selected to receive the lifetime honorific of Provost Professor. The 2023 Provost Professors were selected from a competitive group of nominations by the Provost Professor Selection Committee. The title will be conferred at the Faculty Awards Dinner on Monday, May 8. Read more about newest and previous Provost Professors.

A new research project led by Julie Brigham-Grette will seek to connect a changing Arctic climate with problems related to water and sanitation affecting indigenous Yupik and Cup’ik communities in Alaska’s Yukon-Kuskokwim (YK) Delta. The project is supported by a new $2.98M National Science Foundation (NSF) grant. Read more in the UMass news release.

In a new study published in the journal Earth’s Future, David Boutt, postdoctoral associate Brendan Moran and colleagues at the University of Alaska-Anchorage investigated two of the most important factors in determining whether lithium is obtained responsibly: the age and source of the water the lithium is found in. Additional detail of the study is detailed in the UMass news release and journal article.

Ray Bradley and Stephen Burns are coauthors on a new paper published in the journal Science that links sixth century droughts in the ancient South Arabian kingdom of Himya with the rise of Islam. The research suggests, not surprisingly, that climate history is an important factor in the history of human civilization. Read more in the UMass news release and the journal article.

A team of researchers including Kurt Lindberg ’20, the paper’s first author and a graduate student at the University at Buffalo, and CSRC researchers Isla Castaneda, Will Daniels, and Julie Brigham-Grette have published a study in Climate of the Past that investigated a shift in climate called the Mid-Pleistocene Transition. For this they used specific biomarkers to estimate temperature and vegetation properties to reconstruct the past climate. Read more in the UMass news release.

Ph.D candidate Boyang Zhao along with Ray Bradley and colleagues have published a study in the journal Science Advances that finds that extended drought, on top of other factors, may have led to the abandonment of Norse settlements in southern Greenland in the early 15th century. The team used hydrogen isotopes in leaf wax remnants in lake sediments and other data to conclude that the climate became progressively drier during the Norse period. Read more in the UMass news release, the journal article, and associated piece in Science.

Recently, CSRC’s Julie Brigham-Grette and Rob DeConto were invited to address an international symposium of the world’s leading polar researchers in Monaco. Their full remarks can be seen on YouTube at the 3:25 and 3:48 marks. Read more in the UMass news release.