My current research interests include
The nature, mechanisms and drivers of tropical climate variability and change
The El Niño Southern Oscillation and interdecadal climate variability in the Pacific
Annually-banded corals as environmental recorders (‘coral-palaeoclimatology’)
Processes controlling the growth and development of corals and coral reefs.
Some of my main research collaboratons are with researchers at the following institutions:
Hadley Centre, UK Met Office
University of Exeter, UK
Dunstaffnage Marine Laboratory, Oban
Research School of Earth Sciences, Australian National University
University of Queensland, St Lucia
Australian Institute of Marine Science, Townsville
Department of Geological Sciences, University California Santa Barbara
University of Washington, Seattle
Present: Head of School of GeoSciences; Professor of Climate Studies – University of Edinburgh
Current and recent projects:
1. Quantifying variability in the El Niño Southern Oscillation on adaptation-relevant timescales. Funded by UK NERC for 3 years, 2010-2014. Co-Investigator: Gabi Hegerl (Edinburgh), Project Partners: Mat Collins (Exeter), Simon Tett (Edinburgh), David Battisti(University of Washington), Julie Cole (University of Arizona), Peter Glynn (University of Miami), Stuart Banks (Charles Darwin Foundation), Kim Cobb (Georgia Tech) and Paul Valdes (Bristol). Description: The project involves a combined palaeodata-modelling approach, and includes reconstruction of ENSO and its teleconnections over the past 5,000 years from living and ‘fossil’ corals in Galapagos, and a major climate modelling component.
2. Sea level and climate change from geochemical analysis of corals from the Great Barrier Reef: IODP Expedition 325. Funded bu UK NERC for 1.5 years, 2011-2012.
3. Improving our ability to predict rapid changes in the El Niño Southern Oscillation through a combined palaeo-reconstruction and climate modelling approach. Funded through the UK NERC RAPID Climate Change programme; co-PI: Mat Collins, Hadley Centre; post-doc: Jo Brown, now at Monash University, Australia; other collaborators: David Battisti, University of Washington, Seattle; Axel Timmermann, Hawaii; Amy Clement, RSMAS, Miami. The project has involved fieldwork in Papua New Guinea and Galapagos to collect coral cores for climate reconstruction.
4. Drilling of the Great Barrier reef for sea-lvel and palaeoclimate reconstruction. (Funded by UK IODP for a Site Survey cruise to support an IODP drilling mission in early 2010. This grant is part of an ESF EuroMARC project entitled ChecREEF; UK co-PI: Gideon Henderson; University of Oxford; ChecREEF PI: Gilbert Camoin, CEREGE.
5. Variability in the El Niño Southern Oscillation through a glacial-interglacial cycle from analysis of living and fossil corals in Papua New Guinea (NERC funded)
6. ENSO and decadal climate variability over the past 250 years in the central Pacific from analysis of annually-banded massive corals (NERC funded)
7. Coral reef community variation and palaeoenvironmental reconstruction in the mid-Holocene, Papua New Guinea (John Pandolfi, University of Queensland, P.I.)
Emile-Geay, J., Cobb, K.M., Carré, M., Braconnot, P., Leloup, J., Zhou, Y., Harrison, S.P., Corrège, T., McGregor, H.V., Collins, M. and Driscoll, R., 2015. Links between tropical Pacific seasonal, interannual and orbital variability during the Holocene. Nature Geoscience.
Russon, T., Tudhope, A.W., Collins, M. and Hegerl, G.C., 2015. Inferring changes in ENSO amplitude from the variance of proxy records. Geophysical Research Letters, 42(4), pp.1197-1204.
Thompson, D.M., Cole, J.E., Shen, G.T., Tudhope, A.W. and Meehl, G.A., 2015. Early twentieth-century warming linked to tropical Pacific wind strength. Nature Geoscience, 8(2), pp.117-121.
Driscoll, R., Elliot, M., Russon, T., Welsh, K., Yokoyama, Y. and Tudhope, A., 2014. ENSO reconstructions over the past 60 ka using giant clams (Tridacna sp.) from Papua New Guinea. Geophysical Research Letters, 41(19), pp.6819-6825.
Russon, T., Tudhope, A.W., Hegerl, G.C., Schurer, A. and Collins, M., 2014. Assessing the significance of changes in ENSO amplitude using variance metrics. Journal of Climate, 27(13), pp.4911-4922.
