Earth
and Space Sciences Faculty |
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Eric J.
Steig
Photo: Skiing Mount Shuksan in July last year.
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News
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Areas of
Interest:
Stable isotopes, glaciology,
climatology
Department Affiliations
Other UW Academic
Affiliations:
Background & Current Research:
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.
Recent Publications and Papers in
Review: Ding Q, Steig EJ. Temperature change on the Antarctic Peninsula linked
to the tropical Pacific. Journal of Climate, in review (2012).
WAIS Divide Project Members (TJ Fudge, EJ Steig, BR Markle, K Taylor,
and a cast of thousands). Deglacial warming in West Antarctica driven by
both local orbital and Northern Hemisphere forcing. Nature, in
review.
Burgener S, Rupper S, Koenig L, Forster R, Christensen W, Williams J,
Koutnik M, Miége C, Steig EJ, Keeler D, Riley R. An observed negativP
trend in West Antarctic accumulation rates from 1975 to 2010: evidence
from new observed and simulated records. Journal of Geophysical
Research, in review.
PAGES 2k Consortium. Continental-scale temperature variability during the last two millennia. Nature Geoscience, in press.
Criscitiello AS, Das SB, Evans MJ, Frey KE, Conway H, Joughin I, Medley
B, Steig EJ. Ice-sheet record of recent sea-ice behavior and polynya
variability in the Amundsen Sea, West Antarctica. Journal of
Geophysical Research, doi:10.1029/2012JC008077, in press.
Steig EJ & Orsi AJ. The heat is on in Antarctica. Nature
Geoscience 6, 87-88 (2013).
Schoenemann SW, Schauer AJ, Steig EJ. Measurement of SLAP2 and GISP
δ17O and proposed VSMOW-SLAP normalization for
δ17O and 17Oexcess. Rapid
Communications in Mass Spectrometery, in press (2012).
Steig EJ. Brief but warm Antarctic summer. Nature
489: 39-40 (2012).
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). (2012).
Tobin TS, Ward PD, Steig EJ, Olivero EB,
Hilburn IA, Mitchell RN,
Diamond MT, Raub TD, Kirschvink JL. Association of Deccan flood volcanism,
climate, and extinction at high southern latitudes. Palaeogeography,
Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 350-352, 180-188 (2012).
Neff PD, Steig EJ, Clark DH, McConnell JR, Pettit EC, Menounos B.
Ice-core records of net snow accumulation and seasonal snow chemistry at a
temperate-glacier site: Mount Waddington, southwest British Columbia,
Canada. Journal
of Glaciology (PDF) 58(212): 1165-1175 (2012).
Ding Q, Steig EJ, Battisti DS, Wallace JM. Influence of the tropics on
the Southern Annular Mode. Journal
of Climate, 25, 6330–63 (2012).
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, doi:10.1007/s00382-012-1460-7 (2012).
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, 1003-1006 (2012).
Hezel PJ, Alexander B, Bitz M, 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).
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: 19-28 (2012).
Ding Q, Steig EJ, Battisti DS, Küttell M. Winter warming in West
Antarctica caused by central tropical Pacific warming. Nature
Geoscience,
4: 398 403 (2011).
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 (PDF), 57(204): 629-638 (2011).
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).
Glaciology
,
Stable Isotope Lab
(IsoLab)
Quaternary Research
Center,
Program on Climate
Change
Atmospheric Sciences
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 EJ, Ding Q, White
JCW, Küttel M, Rupper SB, Neumann TA, Neff
P, Gallant A, Mayewski PA, Taylor DC, Hoffmann G, Dixon DA, Schoenemann S,
Markle B, Schneider DP, Fudge TJ, Schauer AJ, Teel RP, Vaughn B, Burgener
L, Williams J, Korotkikh E. Recent climate and ice-sheet
change in West Antarctica compared to the past 2000 years. Nature
Geoscience, doi: 10.1038/NGEO1778 (2013).
Last
Modified:June, 2010
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