To mark its 20th anniversary, Climate of the Past, an interactive journal of the European Geosciences Union, is launching a special webinar series celebrating two decades of leading paleoclimate science.

Each webinar will emphasize the journal’s scientific diversity and impact, featuring two invited talks of 30 minutes from leading researchers across different areas of paleoclimate science. Talks will be followed by a live 30 minutes Q&A session, allowing for discussion and engagement with the broader community.

The polar regions play a critical role in the global climate system and are critical for understanding ice sheet dynamics and sea level changes. Currently, the continental ice sheets on Antarctica and Greenland are losing mass and sea ice concentrations in the Arctic Ocean are declining and the ocean waters warming. 

This session will explore the polar climate history with views from both poles and perspectives from the distant past in the Paleogene to more recent changes during the last glacial cycle and Holocene.

Talks:

Peter Bijl (Utrecht University) - Long-term history of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current

Tectonic changes on the Southern Hemisphere have shaped the configuration of Southern Ocean surface currents. The separation of both Australia and South America away from Antarctica some time in the Paleogene ultimately provided the boundary conditions for the development of the strongest ocean current on our planet: the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC). Over the past decades, reconstructions from sediment cores, and from numerical model simulations, have developed our collective thinking about the development of Southern Ocean oceanography, from strong subpolar gyre circulation to circumpolar flow to the Antarctic circumpolar current we know today. 

My own work on this subject, in many multidisciplinary teams, is focused on microfossil-based paleoceanographic reconstructions (notably with organic-walled dinoflagellate cysts), combined with biomarker paleothermometry (TEX86 and UK37), and integration of those with numerical modeling experiments. I will show that the opening of ocean gateways played a crucial but secondary role in the onset of Antarctic glaciation, that the first circumpolar flow of surface water was slow but destroyed the existing subpolar gyres. 

I will show that subsequent development of the ACC was limited until ~10 million years ago, after which we see paradoxically progressive weakening of latitudinal temperature gradients and the development of Southern Ocean fronts.

Heike Zimmermann (Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland) – Unlocking the seafloor’s genetic archive

Biodiversity is central to the functioning, health, and resilience of marine ecosystems. As climate warming rapidly alters Arctic marine environments, the urgency for long-term ecological baselines has grown. Therefore, studying past ecosystem responses to natural climate variability is essential for interpreting current and future changes. However, many species leave no fossil record (e.g., zooplankton, jellyfish, worm-like fauna), limiting our understanding of past marine ecosystems and our ability to predict future changes. 

The retrieval of sedimentary ancient DNA (sedaDNA), the molecular traces of past biota from marine sediments, has been revolutionary in this regard. It allows us to trace species in the absence of physical remains, offering a more complete picture of ecosystem responses over time. By analyzing these genetic traces, we can uncover how Arctic species and communities responded to changes in climate, sea ice, and ocean conditions up to geological timescales. 

This webinar will explore how sedaDNA opens a window into the past, helping us better understand long-term climate – biota dynamics and offering valuable context for predicting the future of Arctic marine biodiversity.

Conveners:

Antje Voelker & Irina Rogozhina.

Speakers:

Peter Bijl (Utrecht University) - Peter Bijl's personal research interests can be summarized in the theme "Climatic and environmental evolution of Antarctica and the Southern Ocean". Peter teaches in the programmes of Earth Sciences and the Bachelor biology on marine sciences and ice, ocean and climate dynamics and history. During his PhD research, Peter focused on the reconstruction of the climatological evolution of Antarctica and the Southern Ocean in the transition from the hot early Eocene to the middle- and late Eocene cooling. In 2014, Peter recieved the Arne Richter Award for outstanding young scientists from the European Geophysical Union, and in 2018 the Heineken Young Scientist Award from the Royal Netherlands Society of Sciences. For his research, Peter uses predominantly sedimentary archives that are drilled with the successive drilling programs now known as the Integrated Ocean Discovery Program (IODP). The methods Peter applies are focused towards the organic fossils preserved in the sediments: palynology (dinoflagellate cysts (dinocysts) and pollen and spores) combined with organic geochemical biomarker tools. Peter has also collaborated in the establishment of several platforms of science communication with the public. 

Heike Zimmermann (Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland) –  Heike Zimmermann's research interests include ancient DNA, marine ecosystems and changes to the cryosphere. For their research, Heike uses deep-time marine sedimentary ancient DNA to study the relationships between climate change, biodiversity, and ecosystems;. Their work aims to to reveal ecosystem-wide responses to past environmental changes beyond what has so far been possible with standard practices, and ultimately improve the predictability of the future Arctic. Heike is also an active editor, having contributed to journals such as Marine Micropaleontology.

Need help?

If you have any questions about the webinar "Climate of the Past 20th Anniversary: Polar Climate History", please contact us via webinars@egu.eu.

Webinar

Climate of the Past 20th Anniversary: Polar Climate History

Start time

Wed, 14 Jan 2026 16:00 CET

Contact

webinars@egu.eu