Understanding global warming using long-term glacier retreat records

Climate change is one of the greatest challenges facing humanity today. However, it is poorly understood how climate in Australia has responded to changing greenhouse gas concentrations in the past, and therefore how it will respond in the future. We will use the cutting edge technique of exposure dating to create some of the world s best glacier retreat records around the Southern Hemisphere. Exposure dating allows us to directly date glacial geological records for the first time, providing a chronology for climate change. Our findings will determine the sensitivity of Australia s climate to changing greenhouse gas concentrations.