ER
Member Since 1989
Elcho Rohling
Australian National University
Honors and Awards
Maurice Ewing Medal
Received December 2021
Citation
Dr.
Eelco Rohling is a major force in paleoclimatology and paleoceanography
who addresses questions about past oceans and climates that are
critically important to society and the future of humanity. From early
in his career, Rohling recognized the value of analyzing amplified
climate signals from the marginal Mediterranean and Red Sea basins.
Using oxygen isotope measurements of planktonic foraminifera, he
pioneered new methods to develop continuous marginal basin sea level
reconstructions. His highly resolved record for the last glacial cycle
was the first to provide continuous time resolution, which allowed
assessment of rates of sea level change. It revealed that sea level
variations during the last glacial cycle were much more rapid and of
greater magnitude than previously thought and indicated, controversially
at the time, that Antarctic ice sheet fluctuations were likely
involved. Rohling also established the first robust estimates of the
rates at which the sea level rose to several meters above the present
level during the last interglacial maximum, when global temperature was similar to today.
On average, this rate was almost twice as fast as the most pessimistic
predictions for the next century in the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change Fourth Assessment. Never happy to rest on his laurels,
Rohling continuously seeks to develop deeper insights and new
discoveries, particularly about rates of sea level change and their
forcing mechanisms. Rohling has successively produced novel and
influential sea level records from the Red Sea (back 550,000 years) and
the Mediterranean Sea (back 5.3 million years) and, recently, a global
sea level and deep-sea temperature reconstruction for the last 40
million years. Rohling emphasizes the limitations of his work — with
statistical uncertainty quantification — which leads to testing of
results and to further new insights. Rohling’s other important
contributions are many. They include quantifying ancient climate
sensitivity to carbon dioxide forcing and understanding the carbon cycle
and Holocene and millennial climate variability. His framework for
understanding organic matter preservation in Eastern Mediterranean
sediments has deepened understanding of long-term African monsoon
dynamics, including their potential influence on hominin evolution and
migrations out of Africa. Dr. Eelco Rohling’s pioneering research has
had widespread cross-disciplinary scientific impact and has influenced
government policy in several countries. The oceans are a natural source
of inspiration for such a deep and broad thinker as Dr. Eelco Rohling,
who is a much deserving Maurice Ewing Medalist.
— Andrew P. Roberts Australian National University Canberra, AustraliaVideo
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Union Fellow
Received December 2017
Citation
For original contributions to sea level reconstruction and for fundamental insights into understanding anoxic sediment formation.
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