Evaluating the effects of a future Grand Solar Minimum on European Climate

My research aims to understand how variations in the solar activity influenced British’s climate in the past and may do so in the future. Like a tape recorder, annually-laminated lake sediments store environmental and climate changes from present back to the end of the last glacial period 11,700 years ago. I expect to reconstruct climatic parameters in the different seasons, as well as solar activity from sedimentological and chemical features kept in the sediments. The results will provide select information about connections between the Sun activity and climate during episodes of low, medium and high human impact in Europe, which is essential to validate climate models and refine predictions.

I am interested in the Sun because we are now living in a period of low solar activity, which may interrupt Global Warming for a few decades and enhance extreme weather events in Britain and Europe. As a similar situation has never been recorded by instrumental data, high-quality records of past climate are crucial to help plan for the future.