University of Washington College of the Environment ESS Home

ESS Faculty Scholarly Activity

Eric Steig

Courses Taught

Quarter Dept Course # Credits Enrollment % Responsibility Co-Instructor
Winter 2013 ESS 201 5 25 100%
Winter 2012 ESS 201 5 34 100%
Fall 2011 ESS 590B 2 7 100%
Winter 2011 ESS 201 5 30 100%

UW Class Seminars and Lectures

Date(s) Dept/Other Course # Location Type-of-instruction/Title-of-talk
February 3, 2012 OCEAN 506 OSB Discussion with students about my Colloquium in Oceanography

Professional Talks and Presentations

Date Organization Event Invited/Contributed(I/C) Type Title
May 23 2013 Columbia University Abrupt Climate Change Symposium Invited Oral Antarctic Climate and Ice Sheet Change
Apr 22nd - 26th 2013 Columbia University Climate Center Speaker, Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory Invited Oral Three lectures on high latitude climate
Mar 21 2013 Brigham Young University Quay Hebrew Lecture Invited Annual Endowed Lecture Antarctic ice sheet changes and why they matter
December 2012 American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting Invited Oral Antarctic climate and ice sheet change and their relationship to global scale climate change over the last 2000 years
December 2012 American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting Invited Oral What influence have science blogs had, and on whom?
June 2012 Goldschmidt Geochemistry Conference Invited Keynote Oral Climate forcing of ice sheet dynamics in West Antarctica
May 2, 2012 Portland State University SCAR Lecture Series Invited Oral Antartica, sea level rise, and the future.
April 2012 European Geophysical Union Annual Meeting Contributed Oral A high resolution stable isotope record from central West Antarctica covering the last 62000 years
December 2011 American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting Invited Oral Climate in West Antarctica over the last century
December 2011 American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting Contributed Oral Evidence for an anthropogenic contribution to recent ocean-driven ice losses in West Antarctica
November 21, 2011 University of Southern California Colloquium Series Invited Oral Antarctic climate change and its relationship to ice dynamics and sea level
October 2011 WAIS Divide Ice Core Annual P.I. Meeting Contributed Oral WAIS Divide isotopes through the Holocene
September 2011 West Antarctic Ice Sheet Initiative Annual Meeting Invited Oral Evidence for an anthropogenic contribution to recent ocean-driven ice losses in West Antarctica
June 2011 International Glaciological Society International Symposium on the Interactions of Ice Sheets and Glaciers with the Ocean, Scripps Institute of Oceanography, La Jolla, CA Contributed Oral On the influence of tropical climate variability on outlet glacier thinning in the Amundsen Sea embayment, Antarctica
April 2011 Pacific Northwest National Laboratory 8th Washington Hydrogeology Symposium Invited Oral New frontiers in the use of isotopes of water: climate, atmospheric circulation, oxygen-17, atmospheric modeling and beyond
March 2011 Hampshire College Five-College Geology Distinguished Lecturer Series Invited Oral Just getting warmed up: past and future changes on the icy continent
December 2010 University of Michigan Smith Lecture Invited Oral Observations and explanation of recent climate and ice sheet changes in West Antarctica
December 2010 AGU Annual meeting Invited Oral The isotope records from WAIS Divide and US ITASE: climate in West Antarctica over the past two millennia
October 2009 GSA Annual meeting Invited Oral Is recent Antarctic warming exceptional?
October 2009 -- West Antarctic Ice Sheet Divide Ice Core Principal Investigators Meeting Contributed Oral The WAIS Divide Stable Isotope Record, El Nino, and West Antarctic Temperature
July 2009 IAMAS-IAPSO-IACS MOCA-09 Joint Assembly Invited Oral A review of evidence for Antarctic surface warming in the last century
July 2009 IAMAS-IAPSO-IACS MOCA-09 Joint Assembly Contributed Oral The WAIS Divide Stable Isotope Record, El Nino, and West Antarctic Temperature.
May 1st, 2009 University of Exeter, Exeter, UK - Invited Oral "Antarctic climate in the recent past and the near future"
December, 2009 American Geophysical Union Annual Fall Meeting Contributed Oral "Significant warming of the West Antarctic ice sheet surface in the last 50 years"
July 4th, 2008 British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge, UK - Invited Oral "Antarctic climate in the recent past"
July 2nd, 2008 Bristol Glaciology Center, Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK - Invited Oral "Antarctic climate in the recent past"
May 15th, 2008 Laboratoire de Glaciologie et Geophysique de l'Environnement, Universite Joseph Fourier, Grenoble, France - Invited Oral "La climat Antarctique du pass recent au future"
April 17th, 2008 European Geophysical Union Annual Meeting Contributed Oral "Significant warming of West Antarctica in the last 50 years"
March 25th, 26th, 27th Bjerknes Center for Climate Research, University of Bergen, Norway Bjerknes Lecturer Series (three lectures) Invited Oral "Antarctic climate from the recent past to the future"; "Statistical climate field reconstruction methods for ice core records"; "Paleoatmospheric chemistryfrom ice cores"
Feb 8th, 2008 Centre Europeen de Recherche et d'Enseignement des Gosciences de l'Environnement, Universit Paul Cezanne, Aix-en-Provence, France - Invited Oral "Le climat Antarctique du passe recent au futur"
April 2007 European Geophysical Union Annual Meeting Contributed Poster "A null hypothesis for millennial-scale climate variability"
March 2007 University of Portland 2nd evening lecture in UPs Focus the Nation series Invited Oral "Ice cores and paleoclimate: tracking climate change"

Public and Community Service

Date Organization/Event Type of Service
February 27, 2013 Fairhaven College (Western Washington Univ) World Issues Forum Invited Keynote Lecture on Arctic Climate Change and Its Impacts
February 3, 2012 Nordic Heritage Museum, Seattle/President's Club Luncheon Public lecture on Antarctic research
December 13, 2011 Explorer's Club, New York City/Amundsen Day in Celebration of the 100th Anniversary of Roald Amundsen's arrival at South Pole Public lecture on Antarctica and the climate context of Amundsen's trip to the South Pole
March 3-6, 2011 Polar Science Weekend at Pacific Science Center Participated in organizing family learning activities, and gave a TV interview with KOMO 4, Seattle.
November 20, 2010 Seattle Public Library Public presentation on the art and science of Antarctic research, with artist Anna McKee
February 25-28, 2010 Polar Science Weekend at Pacific Science Center Participated in organizing family learning activities
October 3, 2009 Burke Museum/Wondrous Cold: An Antarctic Journey Public Lecture on Antarctic Research
October to December, 2009 Burke Museum/Wondrous Cold: An Antarctic Journey Provided materials for a display on Antarctic research, featuring props from our lab, and photos
May 16th, 2009 Keynote lecture and panelist for The Climate Project, North American Summit, Nashville, TN Lecture on "Climate science: a post-IPCC 2007 update with emphasis on ice sheets and sea level."
April 22nd, 2009 Alcoa International, Bellingham, WA Public lecture on "What Antarctic warming means for the rest of us."
October 14th and 15th, 2008 The Nature Conservancy Conservation Learning Exchange Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
September 15th, 2007 Padilla Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve Local Impact of Global Warming and Sea Level Rise.
April 23, 2007 Climate Change: Exploring Regional Solutions. Hosted by the West Kootenay Eco-Society and the Nelson City Chamber of Commerce, Nelson British Columbia Invited Keynote Lecture: The scientific consensus."
September, 2007 Washington State Department of Ecology, Padilla Bay National Estuarine Center. Inivted public lecture "Global warming and sea level rise: implications

Recent Publications and Manuscripts in the Press

First authored papers:

1) Steig EJ & Orsi AJ. The heat is on in Antarctica. (News & Views commentary), Nature Geoscience, in press.

2)Steig EJ. Brief but warm Antarctic summer (News & Views commentary), Nature, 489, 39–40, 2012.

3) Steig EJ, Ding Q, White JWC, Kuettel M, Rupper SB, Neumann TA, Neff P, Gallant A, Mayewski PA, Taylor K, Hoffmann G, Dixon DA, Schoenemann S, Markle B, Schneider DP, Fudget TJ, Schauer AJ, Teel RP, Vaughn B, Burgener L, WIlliams J, Korotkikh E.  Recent climate and ice sheet changes in West Antarctica compared to the past 2000 years, in press (2013).

4) Steig EJ, Schneider DP, Mann ME, Rutherford SD, Comiso JC, Shindell DT. Warming of the Antarctic ice sheet surface since the 1957 International Geophysical Year. Nature 457: 459-462 (2009).

5) Steig EJ, Ding Q, Battisti DS, Jenkins A. Tropical forcing of circumpolar deep water inflow and outlet glacier thinning in the Amundsen Sea Embayment, West Antarctica. Annals of Glaciology 53(60): 19-28 (2012).


Papers on which my own students or postdocs are first author

*6) Ding Q, Steig EJ. Temperature change on the Antarctic Peninsula linked to the tropical Pacific. Journal of Climate, in press.

7) Schoenemann SW, Schauer AJ, Steig EJ. Measurement of SLAP2 and GISP δ17O and proposed VSMOW-SLAP normalization for 17O-excess. Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry 27, 582–590 (2013).

*8) Winstrup M, Svensson AM, Rasmussen SO, Winther O, Steig EJ, Axelrod A, An automated approach for annual layer counting in ice cores. Climate of the Past 8, 1881-1895 (2012).

*9) Neff PD, Steig EJ, Clark DH, McConnell JR, Pettit EC. An ice core record of net snow accumulation and seasonal snow chemistry at Mt. Waddington, southwest British Columbia, Canada. Journal of Glaciology 58(212): 1165-1175 (2012).

*10) Ding Q, Steig EJ, Battisti DS, Wallace JM. Influence of the tropics on the Southern Annular Mode. Journal of Climate 25: 6330-6348 (2012).



*11) Ding Q, Steig EJ, Battisti DS, Küttel M. Winter warming in West Antarctica caused by central tropical Pacific warming. Nature Geoscience, 4: 398 403 (2011).


*12) Kunasek SA, Alexander B, Steig EJ, Sofen EF, Jackson TL, Thiemens MH, McConnell JR, Gleason DJ, Amos HM. Sulfate sources and oxidation chemistry over the past 230 years from sulfur and oxygen isotopes of sulfate in a West Antarctic ice core. Journal of Geophysical Research 115, D18313, doi:10.1029/2010JD013846 (2010).

*13) Hastings MG, Jarvis JC, Steig EJ. Anthropogenic impacts on nitrogen isotopes of ice-core nitrate. Science 234: 1288 (2009).

*14) Küttel M, Steig EJ, Ding Q, Monaghan AJ, Battisti DS. Seasonal climate information preserved in West Antarctic ice core water isotopes: relationships to temperature, large-scale circulation, and sea ice. Climate Dynamics 39: 1841-1857 (2012).


*15) Jarvis JC, Hastings MG, Steig EJ, Kunasek SA. Isotopic ratios in gas-phase HNO3 and snow nitrate at Summit, Greenland. Journal of Geophysical Research 114: D17301, doi:10.1029/2009JD012134 (2009).





16) PAGES 2k Consortium. (78 authors including me!) Continental-scale temperature variability over the past 2000 years. Nature Geoscience, in press (2013).


17) Zdanowicz C, Fisher D, Bourgeiois J, Demuth M, Zhen J, Mayewski P, Kreutz K, Osterberg E, Yalcin K, Wake C, Steig EJ, Froese D, Goto-Azuma K. Ice cores from the St. Elias Mountains, Yukon Territory, Canada: Their significance for climate, atmospheric composition and volcanism in the North Pacific region. Arctic, in press.




4) Cristicielllo AS, Das SB, Evans MJ, Frey KJ, Conway H, Joughin I, Medley B, Steig EJ. Ice sheet record of recent polynya variability in the Amundsen Sea and Pine Island Bay, West Antarctica. Journal of Geophysical Research, in press (2013).

 
*9) Burgener L, Rupper S, Koenig L, Forster R, Christensen W, Williams J, Koutnik M, Miége C, Steig EJ, Keeler D, Riley R. An observed negative trend in West Antarctic accumulation rates from 1975 to 2010: evidence from new observed and simulated records. Journal of Geophysical Research, in press (2013).



12) Perren BB, Wolfe AP, Cooke CA, Funder SV, Kjaer KJ, Mazzuchi D, Steig EJ. 20th Century warming revives the world’s northernmost lake. Geology 40(11): 1003-1006 (2012).

*13) Tobin TS, Ward PD, Kirschvink JL, Steig EJ, Olivero EB, Hilburn IA, Mitchell RS, Raub TD. Association of Deccan flood volcanism, climate, and extinction at high southern latitudes. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 350-352: 180-188 (2012).




15) Mayewski PA, Maasch KA, Dixon D, Sneed SN, Oglesby R, Korotkikh E, Potocki M, Grigholm B, Kreutz K, Kurbatov AV, Spaulding N, Stager JC, Taylor KC, Steig EJ, White JCW, Bertler NAN, Goodwin I, Simões, Jaña A, Kraus S, Fastook J. West Antarctica’s sensitivity to natural and human forced climate change over the Holocene. Journal of Quaternary Science 28, 40–48 (2013).

*16) Hezel PJ, Alexander B, Bitz CM, Steig EJ, Holmes CD, Yang X, Sciare J. Modeled methanesulfonic acid (MSA) deposition in Antarctica and its relationship to sea ice. Journal of Geophysical Research D23214, doi:10.1029/2011JD016383 (2011).

*17) Costa AW, Michalski G, Schauer AJ, Alexander B, Steig EJ, Shepson PB. Analysis of atmospheric inputs of nitrate to a temperate forest ecosystem from Δ17O isotope ratio measurements. Geophysical Research Letters 38: L15805, doi:10.1029/2011GL047539 (2011).


*19) Fegyveresi JM, Alley RB, Spencer MK, Fitzpatrick JJ, Steig EJ, White JWC, McConnell JR, Taylor KC. Late-Holocene climate evolution at the WAIS Divide site, West Antarctica: bubble number-density estimates. Journal of Glaciology, 57(204): 629-638 (2011).

20) Hagedorn B, Sletten SR, Hallet B, McTigue DF, Steig EJ. Ground ice recharge via brine transport in frozen soils of Victoria Valley, Antarctica: Insights from modeling δ18O and δD profiles. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 74 435-448 (2010).

*24) Williford KH, Foriel J, Ward PD, Steig EJ. Major perturbation in sulfur cycling at the Triassic/Jurassic boundary. Geology 37: 835-838 (2009).

Current Research Interests

Stable isotope geochemistry, glaciology, paleoclimatology, recent climate change

Current C.V. URL

http://earthweb.ess.washington.edu/~steig/SteigCV.pdf

In the News

2013 Article in CSM about my Antarctic work published in Nature Geoscience. 
http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2013/0416/Antarctic-ice-tells-conflicting-story-about-climate-change-s-role-in-big-melt

2013 Interview with NY Times about a a new ice core paper in Nature. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/01/science/earth/at-ice-age-end-a-smaller-gap-in-warming-and-carbon-dioxide.html

2013 Interview with Public Radio International: http://www.theworld.org/2013/01/antarctica-warming-raises-sea-level-rise-risk/

2012 Highlights in several international newspapers highlighting the definitive confirmation of our previously-controversial finding that West Antartica is warming.
USA Today: "West Antarctic warming confirmed": http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/sciencefair/2012/12/23/antarctica-warming-global/1782829
Le Monde: "Spetacular warming in West Antarctica":
http://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2012/12/25/climat-rechauffement-spectaculaire-de-l-ouest-de-l-antarctique_1810144_3244.html#xtor=AL-32280270
New York Times: "West Antarctic warming faster than previously thought":
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/24/science/earth/west-antarctica-warming-faster-than-thought-study-finds.html

2012 Highlight in the UW Daily on postdoc Lei Geng's work on nitrate in Greenland ice cores. http://www.washington.edu/news/2012/12/07/greenland-ice-sheet-carries-evidence-of-increased-atmospheric-acidity

2012 Highlight of our paper in Geology, in National Geographyic news.  http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/10/121017-northernmost-lake-greenland-global-warming-science-environment/

2012 Highlights of our paper on the cause of mass extinctions at the K-Pg boundary, from our work in Antarctica with paleontologist Peter Ward:
Science: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/337/6100/1280

2011 Highlights of our paper on the cause of recent Antarctic climate change in Nature Geoscience in:
1) UW News: http://www.washington.edu/news/articles/west-antarctic-warming-triggered-by-warmer-sea-surface-in-tropical-pacific

2) Nature Geoscience itself: http://www.nature.com/ngeo/press_releases/ngeo0411.html

3) In the National Science Foundation's "Breaking news": http://news.science360.gov/archives/20110412

4) In South American newspapers (perhaps due to the focus of tropical climate connections): http://diario.latercera.com/2011/04/11/01/contenido/tendencias/16-65402-9-estudio-ubica-en-el-pacifico-ecuatorial-origen-del-calentamiento-de-antartica.shtml

2010 Live TV interview with KOMO News 4 highlighting our outreach activities at Polar Science Weekend: http://www.komonews.com/home/video/117454003.html?tab=video 

Research Spotlight in EOS about our 2010 paper on oxygen isotopes in sulfate in Antarctic ice core:
http://www.agu.org/journals/eo/eo1049/2010EO490011.pdf

Seattle Times article on our <i>Nature</i> paper on Antarctic climate change:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008656589_antarctica22m.html

NSF highlight of our <i>Science</i> paper on changes to the atmospheric nitrogen cycle:
http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=114944&org=NSF&from=news

NSF highlight of our <i>Nature</i> paper on Antarctic climate change:
http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=113046&org=NSF&from=news

Science Daily report on our <i>Nature</i> paper on Antarctic climate change.:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090121144049.htm

NASA news reports on on our Nature paper on Antarctic climate change:
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20090121/

New York times article on our Nature paper on Antarctic climate change:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/22/science/earth/22climate.html?hp

National Center for Atmospheric Research press release about our 2009 paper on Antarctica climate, published in PNAS:
http://www.ucar.edu/news/releases/2008/antarcticwarming.jsp

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