PAGES - Past Global Changes

Welcome to PAGES

The PAGES (Past Global Changes) project is an international effort to coordinate and promote past global change research. The primary objective is to improve our understanding of past changes in the Earth system in order to improve projections of future climate and environment, and inform strategies for sustainability. ... more

PAGES is open and inclusive to all scientists interested in past global changes. In February 2017, PAGES' parent organization Future Earth published a statement affirming its commitment to supporting international collaboration and the free movement of scientists and flow of data, information and knowledge for global sustainability. PAGES fully supports the Future Earth statement.

PAGES is funded by the US National Science Foundation and the Swiss Academy of Sciences, and supported in-kind by the University of Bern, Switzerland. It is a Global Research Project of Future Earth and a scientific partner of WCRP.

New Floods' FFA paper

Details: Published: Monday, 12 November 2018 12:25

Floods Working Group Scientific Steering Committee members Scott St. George and Manfred Mudelsee recently published a new paper on the weight of the flood-of-record in flood frequency analysis.

The standard approach to flood frequency analysis (FFA) fits mathematical functions to sequences of historic flood data and extrapolates the tails of the distribution to estimate the magnitude and likelihood of extreme floods.

Here, the authors identify the most exceptional floods in the United States as compared against other major floods at the same location, and evaluate how the flood‐of‐record (Qmax) influences FFA estimates.

Access the Journal of Flood Risk Management paper here.

Read more about the Floods Working Group and sign up to its mailing list here.

New open-data guidelines

Details: Published: Wednesday, 07 November 2018 14:40

Open data strengthens global paleoscience!

In celebration of International Data Week, Past Global Changes is pleased to announce its updated and expanded open-data procedures for PAGES working groups.

The guidelines build on FAIR data principles (findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable) as reflected in new Author Guidelines, which are endorsed by major publishers, repositories, funders and science communities, including PAGES.

Read more about the Enabling FAIR Data project in this week's Eos.

Mapping sea-level change

Details: Published: Wednesday, 07 November 2018 09:24

Members of PAGES' PALSEA working group review the current methodologies and data sources used to reconstruct the history of sea-level change over geological (Pliocene, Last Interglacial, and Holocene) and instrumental (tide-gauge and satellite alimetry) eras, and the tools used to project the future spatial and temporal evolution of sea level, in a recent Annual Review of Environment and Resources paper.

Led by Benjamin Horton, authors use case studies from Singapore and New Jersey to illustrate the ways in which current methodologies and data sources can constrain future projections, and how accurate projections can motivate the development of new sea-level research questions across relevant timescales.

Access "Mapping Sea-Level Change in Time, Space, and Probability" here.

Capron receives IUGG Award

Details: Published: Tuesday, 06 November 2018 16:22

PAGES congratulates our Scientific Steering Committee member Emilie Capron (right of photo, blue top) on yesterday's announcement that she will receive an International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG) award in 2019.

Capron, who is also one of the QUIGS working group leaders, and nine other scientists will receive IUGG Early Career Scientist Awards, for their outstanding research in Earth and space sciences and for their international research cooperation.

"I am very honoured to receive this award," Capron said. "Past climate research is important for understanding our changing world and I feel privileged to be a part of and contribute to this scientific community." Capron was nominated by colleagues from the ice-core community.

Host PAGES 2021 OSM & YSM

Details: Published: Thursday, 25 October 2018 13:04

Held every four years, PAGES’ Open Science Meeting (OSM) and Young Scientists Meeting (YSM) provide an invaluable opportunity to bring the past global change community together from around the world to share, discuss, learn, and plan for the future.

Would you and your institution like to be an integral part of these premier events in the international paleoscience calendar? The call is now open to host the next meetings in 2021, preferably in the first half of the year.

The bidding process will take place in two stages with Expressions of Interest due 28 February 2019. PAGES' Scientific Steering Committee will then invite a shortlist of selected potential hosts to submit a full bid by early September 2019.

Learn more about our past OSMs and YSMs and watch a short summary video from the successful 2017 events, held in Spain, on PAGES' YouTube Channel.

Volcanic drivers during LIA

Details: Published: Monday, 22 October 2018 11:15

The fast retreat of Alpine glaciers since the mid-19th century, documented in photographs, is used as a symbol for the human impact on global climate, yet the key driving forces remain elusive.

In a new paper from VICS working group, authors, led by Michael Sigl, argue that volcanic eruptions, and not industrial soot, were responsible for an apparently accelerated deglaciation starting in the 1850s.

Their findings, published in The Cryosphere, support a negligible role of human activity in forcing glacier recession at the end of the Little Ice Age, highlighting the role of natural drivers.