Maynooth University Department of Geography invites you to attend a Seminar presented by Dr Nick Scroxton.
Thursday 8th December at 4pm in the Rocque Lab, Rhetoric House.
Marching to the beat of their own drum: What southern hemisphere stalagmites tell us about rainfall, abrupt climate change, Hobbits and the fate of civilizations
Understanding and adapting to changes in water availability due to climate change is one of the most important challenges we face in the twenty-first century. To do so, we must understand how rainfall has responded to climate changes in the past. In this talk I’m going to discuss past rainfall variability from the viewpoint of stalagmites in the southern hemisphere. Rainfall records from stalagmites from understudied areas have the potential to test and challenge ideas generated from largely northern hemisphere data. Understanding past rainfall then allows us to go one step further, to investigate impacts to flora, fauna, and societies. Hobbits, megafauna extinctions and the Indus Valley Harappan civilization might all have had their fates tied to rainfall. Or did they?
