Greenland ice cores and North Atlantic marine records show clear evidence of concomitant rapid climate and deep-ocean circulation shifts during the last deglaciation. It is widely accepted that these climate shifts involved large variations in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) via changes in high-latitude North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW) formation and export. However, due to intrinsic limitations with the precision and accuracy of paleoceanographic timescales, there remain fundamental uncertainties as to whether North Atlantic abrupt climate shifts were forced or reinforced by changes in deep-water circulation. The project will determine the response time of North Atlantic climate to changes in NADW flow by aligning the timescales of Greenland ice cores and North Atlantic marine records using ultra-high-resolution reconstructions of meteoric 10Be –a globally synchronous signal of past solar activity.

The Post-doctoral Research Associate will employ the 10Be synchronization results to generate high-resolution records of ocean ventilation and deep-water flow from marine sediment cores from the Nordic Seas and northern North Atlantic over the last deglaciation. The successful candidate will have experience in many of the following areas including planktic and benthic foraminiferal speciation, stable isotope analyses, preparation of foraminifera for radiocarbon analysis, sortable silt grain-size analysis, age-depth modelling.