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>>DrR TAS VAN OMMEN - CLIMATE PROCESSES AND CHANGE THEME LEADER:
I am a physicist by training. I started my research career as an astronomer and worked
overseas for a while, came back to Australia and fell sideways into a position here at
the Antarctic Division doing the physics of glaciers, so I have become a glaciologist
in my career.
So the Climate Processes and Change theme covers four areas. The first of those is the
ice sheet itself, the second area is the ice that floats on the ocean and oceanography
all wrapped up into super sub-theme. The third area we look at is the atmosphere above Antarctica
and the fourth strand to our research is looking at past climate mainly from looking at ice
cores that go back in time.
Looking back in the past is really the only way you can get enough information to test
your understanding of the way the climate system works. And we've used the really
detailed ice cores that we get from Law Dome, which is near Casey station, and they've
allowed us to look in great detail at climate change and understand it in a way that you
can't do from most ice-cores just because of this high detail.
For example we have looked at changes in snow fall in the area over the last several centuries.
We've found quite a clear link between rainfall in Western Australia or the drought that has
been there and snowfall in East Antarctica. We've been able to use the very long records
from the ice cores to say that what we are seeing now is unusual and very likely connected
to climate change itself.
One of the projects I have been involved in actually was looking with a plane that has
radar under the wings, shining the radar through the ice sheet to actually get a map of the
bedrock underneath. And that was fascinating because we were flying along looking at the
computer traces coming back from the radar and seeing for the first time the way the
bedrock had deep valleys and high mountains underneath and for the first time being able
to map out large areas of Antarctica.
There are still really important questions to answer about where Antarctica and the climate
system is headed. We need to understand better for example how the ice sheets are going to
respond in a warming climate because any loss of the ice in the Antarctica translates to
sea level rise.
One of the highlights of this career is being able to actually go into the field and do
some research. Drilling for an ice core where you might be hundreds of kilometers away from
the nearest other party of human beings in extreme environments, experiencing the almost
sensory overload of the wind, the cold, and the stunning visual environment that you are
in, it's really invigorating.