Research thematics

The GLACIO team conducts climate and hydrological cycle studies through the analysis of stable isotopes of water and air molecules (diazote, dioxygen, argon). The aim is to understand past (Quaternary) and present climatic variability from tropical to polar regions, and to better characterize the coupling between climate and the atmospheric water cycle.

Our research involves both observations and a wide range of isotope modelling tools, from simple modelling based on the laws of stable isotope physics or snow density modelling, to the use of regional atmospheric models and general circulation or “cloud-resolving” models including isotopes.

Finally, some projects are examining how local populations feel about climate change in Greenland, using an interdisciplinary approach based on the collection of local stories in close partnership with CEARC.

Our research work is divided into complementary fields:

1. The study of current atmospheric processes in polar and tropical environments (atmospheric convection, origin, transport and mixing of moisture in the atmosphere, continental water recycling, exchanges between stratosphere and troposphere, etc.) based on water isotopes in rain, water vapor, snow and ice.
2. Calibration of the isotopic tool to exploit its signal quantitatively in terms of climate variables. This involves monitoring the evolution of the isotopic composition of rain, water vapor and surface snow as a function of meteorological variables over the current period, and studying the acquisition and archiving of the isotopic signal in ice cores.
3. Climate variability over the last few centuries, at annual or sub-annual resolution. This research area, relatively recent in the team, has been made possible thanks to access to Antarctic coastal ice and increased analytical capacity.
4. Rapid climate variability, corresponding to the millennial variations of the last ice age (Dansgaard-Oeschger events) and previous cycles, as well as glacial-interglacial transitions. We aim to describe and quantify these climatic changes with the highest possible temporal resolution and the best possible dating.
5. Quaternary climate variability at the orbital scale, from the Holocene to the climate cycles of the last 800,000 years, with the study of the last 1.5 million years (Beyond EPICA Antarctic drilling program, 2021 – 2026) in sight.