Professor Luke Skinner
I am a Reader in Earth System Science, in the Department of Earth Sciences. I teach Part 1A, Part II and Part III climate science options, and I am also a Director of Studies and Tutor for Graduate Admissions at Magdalene College.
My research looks at climate change through the lens of the past. My aim is to provide a ‘long view’ on the environmental processes that regulate global- and regional climate on timescales that are still relevant to human experience (i.e. decades to millennia). The work I conduct is primarily concerned with the web of interconnected processes that regulate our planet’s carbon cycle and energy budget, with a primary focus on the ocean as the main repository for carbon and heat at the Earth surface – it contains 60 times more carbon than the atmosphere, and the top metre of water contains as much energy as the entire atmosphere. It could be said that: nothing can happen to atmospheric CO2 or global temperature, without the ocean ‘knowing about it’ and playing a role in their regulation. The ocean is therefore guaranteed a key role in the anthropogenic climate changes that we will face in the future. However, the sensitivity and natural variability of the processes that govern this role remain a major uncertainty for future projections, which my research seeks to address, as best it can.