UW-ESS All Faculty Directory

Earth and Space Sciences Faculty

Eric J. Steig
Professor
Director, Quaternary Research Center

Office: Johnson Hall 351
Phone: 206-685-3715
Fax: 206-543-3836 (shared)
E-Mail:
Lab: 206-543-6327 Web Page: ISOLAB

News

We're updating our data web pages to make data access easier. Check our ITASE web page data section for updates.

Our paper on sulfur isotope changes at the T-J boundary, is in the September Geology.

Our paper on the influence of fossil fuel burning on the isotopic composition of atmospheric nitrogen oxides was published in Science on June 5th.

Our paper on Antarctic temperature change was published in Nature in January. For a longer term perspective on Antarctic climate change, based on ice core records, see our paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Schneider & Steig, 2008).

Areas of Interest:
Stable isotopes, glaciology, climatology

Research Groups:
Analytical Geochemistry, Glaciology , Climate and Paleoclimate

Other UW Academic Affiliations:
Quaternary Research Center, Program on Climate Change

Background & Current Research:
Eric Steig completed his PhD in Geological Sciences at UW in 1995, was Research Assistant Professor at the University of Colorado from 1996-1998 and Assistant Professor at the University of Pennsylvania before returning to UW in 2001. He was promoted to Full Professor in 2008. He is the founding co-director of ISOLAB, a state-of-the art isotope geochemistry facility involving research ranging from climate and atmospheric chemistry to geobiology.

Steig teaches environmental earth science, isotope geochemistry and paleoclimatology at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. With his graduate students, postdocs, and lab staff, he uses various methods to develop time series of past environmental changes as a context for understanding contemporary and possible future change. Current focus areas include recent temperature and snow accumulation variability in Antarctica; development and application of methods to measure nitrogen isotope concentrations in atmospheric "odd-N" species (HNO₃, NO₂, NO), and the Δ¹⁷O oxygen isotope anomaly in both odd-N and water; and acquisition of ice cores from both Antarctica and temperate alpine regions. He is also collaborating with paleontologist Peter Ward on research at the K-T and other 'mass extinction' boundaries in the geologic record. Research support is from the National Science Foundation's Polar and Atmospheric Sciences Programs, and from the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences (CFCAS).

He has been a contributor to science planning for glaciological and solid-earth geosciences in the polar regions, to international efforts to track pollution in the Arctic, and to archive and sample allocation at the National Ice Core Laboratory. He is a current member of the NSF-funded Ice Core Working Group and the steering committee for the International Partnerships in Ice Coring Sciences (IPICS) initiative. Steig served as Associate Editor (2001-2004) and Senior Editor (2005-2008) of the journal Quaternary Research, and continues as Special Editor for occasional solicited papers of interest. Steig is active in public education, and has given lectures to organizations such as the Padilla Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve on the Washington State coast, and the Nature Conservancy. He is a founding member and contributor to the influential climate science web site, "RealClimate.org"

More information on Steig's research is available at the lab web pages and the research group web pages listed above. Check the "Dissertations" page to find out about our former students, and what they are doing now at NCAR, NASA, and unversities around the world.

Selected Recent Publications:

Williford KH, Foriel J, Ward PD, Steig EJ. Major perturbation in sulfur cycling at the Triassic/Jurassic boundary. Geology 37: 835-838 (2009).
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).
Hastings MG, Jarvis JC, Steig EJ. Anthropogenic impacts on nitrogen isotopes of ice-core nitrate. Science 324: 1288 (2009).
Steig EJ, Schneider DP, Rutherford SD, Mann ME, Comiso JC, Shindell DT. Warming of the Antarctic ice sheet surface since the 1957 International Geophysical Year. Nature 457 459-462 (2009).
Kunasek SA, Alexander B, Steig EJ, Hastings MG, Gleason DJ, Jarvis JC. Measurements and modeling of Δ¹⁷O of nitrate in a snowpit from Summit, Greenland. Journal of Geophysical Research 113: D24302, doi:10.1029/2008JD010103 (2008).
Jarvis JC, Steig EJ, Hastings MG, Kunasek SA. The influence of local photochemistry on isotopes of nitrate in Greenland snow. Geophysical Research Letters 35: L21804, doi:10.1029/2008GL035551 (2008).
Schneider EJ, Steig, DP. Ice cores record significant 1940s Antarctic warmth related to tropical climate variability. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105: 12154-12158 (2008).
Steig EJ, Wolfe AP. Sprucing up Greenland. Science, 320: 1595-1596 (2008).
Koenig LS, Steig EJ, Winebrenner DP, Shuman CA, A link between microwave extinction length, firn thermal diffusivity and accumulation rate in West Antarctica, Journal of Geophysical Research 2007.
Schneider DP, Steig EJ, van Ommen TD, Dixon DA, Mayewski PA, Jones JM, Bitz CM. Antarctic temperatures over the past two centuries from ice cores. Geophysical Research Letters 33, L16707, doi:10.1029/2006GL02705 (2006).
Steig EJ, Mayewski PA, Dixon DA, Frey MM, Kaspari SD, Schneider DP, Arcone SA, Hamilton GS, Spikes VB, Albert M, Meese D, Gow AJ, Shuman CA, White JWC, Sneed S, Flaherty J, Wumkes M. High-resolution ice cores from US ITASE (West Antarctica); development and validation of chronologies and estimatation of precision and accuracy. Annals of Glaciology 41: 77-84 (2005).
Roe GH & Steig EJ. Characterization of millennial-scale climate variability. Journal of Climate 17: 1929-1944 (2004).

Last Modified:May 26th, 2006

Earth and Space Sciences
( Geology, Geophysics, Geological Sciences)
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