Dr Paul Hesse - Research
| A small dust storm in western NSW. Dust is commonly eroded during the summer months of drought years and may be carried thousands of kilometres to the oceans by the wind. |  |
My research interests are in the field of Quaternary (last 2 million years) palaeoclimatology (past climates) which have affected the environment of today. I am interested in the mechanisms of long-term climate change and the landscape response to long-term climate change, especially in arid lands. This includes development and testing of indicators (proxies) of past climates and the investigation of linkages between atmosphere, oceans and continents. Click here (link) for a list of recent publications.
Research Projects
Australian Arid Zone Quaternary
Palaeoclimatology
Australian Arid Zone
Quaternary Palaeoclimatology Research into arid zone
environmental response to global climate change.
Deserts, sand dunes and aeolian dust: the history of
activity of desert sand dunes and dust deposited on land
and in the oceans surrounding Australia. Investigations
have ranged from the Simpson Desert to the New South
Wales Highlands; Tasman Sea and Indian Ocean. These
studies contribute to the DIRTMAP
project and IGCP
500 Dryland change: Past, Present, Future.
History and dynamics of arid zone
wetlands
Rivers of the interior of Australia
most usually terminate in floodouts or marshes as they
traverse the dry plains. These marshes provide important
foci for wildlife and archaeology. The Macquarie Marshes
in northwestern New South Wales are a dynamic wetland
environment whose history and geomorphic processes are
being investigated by postgraduate students.
Global Change: Australian climate
history and regional linkages
Comparison of long
records of climate change, such as aeolian dust in
deep-sea sediments, allow us to reconstruct the regional
response of the climate system to global change; the
focus of the IGBP PAGES Pole-Equator-Pole
Transect II - Austral-Asia (PEP II), which I lead.
Recently, the Australasian INTIMATE Project has
begun to compare precisely dated proxy records for the
last 20,000 years to understand accurately the sequence
of environmental change caused by massive global climate
change at the end of the last ice age.
Deserts, climate variability and
climate change
This project investigates how
climate variability and change can influence the
activity of desert sand dunes through the response of
vegetation and wind. This project links to the past (how
do we reconstruct climate change from the history of
sand dune movement?) and future (how will arid lands
respond to contemporary climate change and land
management?)
| Preparing a gravity corer on the research vessel Franklin in the Indian Ocean off Western Australia. The 1 tonne lead weight pushes the corer into the sediments of the sea floor, up to 2500 m water depth. |  |
All hot and sweaty?
Get in touch
to talk about past climates, dust, marine sediments and
Honours or Postgraduate work.