International research project will study past climate changes in the European Arctic

(Image removed) Melanie Stammler, project leader, running ground penetrating radar over a dune north of Vittangi. 

1,572,000 SEK to international project that will study past climate changes in the European Arctic

Thomas Stevens is a participant in a new international research project ‘Sand dunes and Holocene environmental change in the European Arctic (ArcDune)’ funded by the ‘Deep-time Digital Earth IUGS Big Science’ program. The project is led by Melanie Stammler at University of Bonn in Germany, and stems directly from her MSc dissertation conducted with Thomas at Uppsala. The project aims to use aeolian sand dunes in Arctic Sweden, Norway and Finland to reconstruct climate and wildfire history over the last 11,000 yrs in this highly sensitive region. It will develop semi-automated mapping of the dunes and analyses of their age, stratigraphy and form. This information will also help constrain how future climate changes may affect dune reactivation, landscape change, fire frequency and vegetation degradation in the European Arctic.

For more information contact Thomas Stevens:
Email: thomas.stevens@geo.uu.se
Telephone:+4618-471 1788

Read a paper related to the project: https://doi.org/10.1002/ppp.2169