2025-LU10 Environmental Change in High Arctic Lakes: from the Holocene to the Anthropocene

Project highlights

Rare opportunity to undertake paleoenvironmental research in the High Arctic, a sensitive, important and rapidly changing region and biome

Opportunity to undertake fieldwork in the High Arctic of Greenland (funding contingent) and research visits to centres of research excellence in Denmark and Germany

Lakes are sentinels of catchment change especially at high latitudes, and little is known about their responses to past (and present) climate changes

Overview

Over the last century, the High Arctic has experienced rapid warming four times faster than the global average since 1979 (Rantanen et al. 2022). Warming has impacted Arctic ecosystems directly through changes in both their phenology and community structure (Woelders et al. 2018), and indirectly through changes in hydrology as glaciers and permafrost dynamics alter. Determining patterns, processes and changes in Arctic environments and ecosystems is a priority to understand and forecast environmental change in the wider Arctic region.

Lakes are especially sensitive sentinels of such environmental changes, as they respond directly to climate change through changing heat budgets (affecting lake processes and nutrient dynamics) and indirectly to changing catchment stability, hydrology, vegetation and atmospheric deposition, affecting nutrient, sediment and pollutant flux. However, because the Arctic remains so sparsely monitored, documenting such changes and their impact is challenging. Well-dated lake sediments provide an excellent archive of environmental change that offers a long-term perspective on lake-catchment dynamics and changes over the lake-landscape system. This longer time perspective is crucial for determining the timing and extent of recent Anthropocene environmental change, and how this differs from natural variability over longer timescales, and provides a palaeoenvironmental context for High Arctic archaeology, exploring patterns in (and testing hypotheses of) past human occupation, settlement and subsistence over the Holocene.

Lake sediment archives in Arctic regions yield catchment-lake (and at lower elevations, earlier marine) environmental changes over time and provide insight into ecosystem functions and services such as biodiversity, nutrient cycling, sediment transport and carbon sequestration (Smol et al. 2005, Anderson et al., 2008, Woelders et al. 2018). Lake sediments integrate multiple proxies of environmental change, including aquatic biota, catchment erosion and glacial activity and direct evidence of anthropogenic pollutants. Understanding the dynamics of such change is critical to determine the extent of anthropogenic impacts in the High Arctic and for forecasting environmental change across the Arctic region. Lakes in the ice-free margins of north-east Greenland (~80 °N) offer opportunities to investigate environmental change over both shorter (Anthropocene) and longer (Holocene/Interglacial) timescales from their sediments, both those that lie above and below the local marine limit.

Figure 1: (a and b) High Arctic lake near Station Nord (81°36’ N, 16°39’W), North-east Greenland, August 2024. (c) Sediment core from Somersø (“Summer Lake”, near Station Nord). Note laminations clearly visible throughout core. Core is ~20 cm long. Both images taken in August 2024.

Host

Loughborough University

Theme

Climate and Environmental Sustainability
Organisms and Ecosystems

Supervisors

Project investigator

Professor Dave Ryves, Loughborough University, [email protected]

Co-investigators

Dr Jeff Evans, Loughborough University, [email protected]
Dr Ole Bennike, Geological Survey of Denmark & Greenland (GEUS), [email protected]
Professor Bernd Wagner, Institute of Geology and Mineralogy, University of Cologne, [email protected]

How to apply

Each host has a slightly different application process.
Find out how to apply for this studentship.
All applications must include the CENTA application form.
Choose your application route

Methodology

A multi-proxy approach will be used to analyse lake core sediments from the Station Nord (Villum Research Station) area of the High Arctic north Greenland at high temporal resolution and to generate records of environmental change. This will include diatom assemblages (key primary producers in Arctic environments; Ryves et al., 2002, Weckström et al. 2023), chronological methods (e.g. 210Pb, 14C) and physical and (bio)geochemical sediment analyses (e.g. using XRF), and possibly pollutants (heavy metals such as mercury and lead, and pollutants such as POPs and PAHs). The project will use lake sediments collected in 2009, 2014 and August 2024 from the wider region by supervisory team members (and hopefully new sediment records collected within the project). Multivariate statistical approaches will investigate linkages between proxies and test hypotheses of environmental change (using diatoms, pollutants, XRF and other regional records of environmental change such as sea level, climate and glacier/ice sheet fluctuations).

Training and skills

DRs will be awarded CENTA Training Credits (CTCs) for participation in CENTA-provided and ‘free choice’ external training. One CTC can be earned per 3 hours training, and DRs must accrue 100 CTCs across the three and a half years of their PhD.

Training will be provided on a range of techniques in sedimentology and palaeolimnology including quantitative diatom analysis (e.g. diatom-environment relationships as found in previous studies e.g. Ryves et al. 2002, Weckström et al. 2023). Depending on the interest of the successful applicant, other proxies and approaches will be investigated, such as landscape evolution, early Holocene marine environmental change and basin isolation/emergence, lake ontogeny, (bio)geochemistry, heavy metals and other pollutants. Opportunities for fieldwork at Villum Research Station will be explored, providing a rare chance for the doctoral student to experience High Arctic fieldwork and spend time on an Arctic research base.

Partners and collaboration

The PhD project is in collaboration with colleagues at the Geological Survey of Denmark & Greenland (GEUS) in Copenhagen and Aarhus (Denmark), as well as the University of Cologne in Germany. There will be opportunities for the PhD student to visit both external partners for access to samples as well as expertise in High Arctic palaeoenvironmental research. The supervisory team will also apply for fieldwork at Villum Research Station (Denmark) at Station Nord (https://villumresearchstation.dk/), under international programs for Arctic research, to collect additional lake sediment sequences and to allow the PhD student to experience the High Arctic environment.

Further details

For further information about this project, please contact Prof Dave Ryves ([email protected]) or Dr Jeff Evans ([email protected]).

To apply to this project: 

You must include a CENTA studentship application form, downloadable from: CENTA Studentship Application Form 2025.

You must include a CV with the names of at least two referees (preferably three) who can comment on your academic abilities.

Please submit your application and complete the host institution application process via: https://www.lboro.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/apply/research-applications/ The CENTA Studentship Application Form 2025 and CV, along with other supporting documents required by Loughborough University, can be uploaded at Section 10 “Supporting Documents” of the online portal. Under Section 4 “Programme Selection” the proposed study centre is Central England NERC Training Alliance. Please quote CENTA 2025-LU10 when completing the application form.

For further enquiries about the application process, please contact the School of Social Sciences & Humanities ([email protected]).

Applications must be submitted by 23:59 GMT on Wednesday 8th January 2025. 

Possible timeline

Year 1

Become familiar with palaeoenvironmental research methodologies, with a focus on palaeolimnology and palaeoenvironments in the High Arctic. Begin analyses with existing sediment samples from Station Nord. Possible fieldwork at Station Nord (subject to funding).

Year 2

Generate and analyse palaeoenvironmental datasets, with a focus on diatoms, and additional proxies. Possible fieldwork at Station Nord if not possible in Year 1 (subject to funding).

Year 3

Finalise generation and analysis of palaeoenvironmental datasets. Write up initial results for possible publication and attend one or more international conferences to disseminate results. Write up PhD thesis.