Matthew L. Staitis
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staitis.bsky.social
Matthew L. Staitis
@staitis.bsky.social
PhD student at the University of East Anglia
Investigating PETM biotic/environmental change Paleoclimate|Micropaleo|Geochemistry
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbpInDqTLp9_newr47g5CLA
Pinned
What Climate Future Do We Want?
#COP30 is underway but is climate change still to be a priority?
Our 'past warm worlds' serve as useful reminders of what legacy we will leave for our children and grandchildren if we aren't ambitious on #ClimateAction
Reposted by Matthew L. Staitis
Nice contribution in @science.org Advances on the importance of reef ecosystems for biodiversity. Reefs were persistent hotspots of biodiversity throughout most of the Phanerozoic (last ~550 million years), it seems!
doi.org/10.1126/scia...
Reefal regions were biodiversity hotspots throughout the Phanerozoic
Geographic regions that support reefal environments have been key hotspots of marine animal diversity for over 400 million years.
doi.org
November 10, 2025 at 12:23 PM
Reposted by Matthew L. Staitis
Crisis in Iran as reservoirs supplying Mashhad, the second-largest city with 4 million people, fall below 3%

Authorities warn of an unprecedented drought emergency

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/n...
Water levels below 3% in dam reservoirs for Iran’s second city, say reports
Storage dwindles in Mashhad, home to 4 million people, as country struggles with drought
www.theguardian.com
November 9, 2025 at 5:46 PM
Reposted by Matthew L. Staitis
An informative article, but it doesn't make me optimistic about the answer to the headline question.
#COP30
www.theguardian.com/news/ng-inte...
Amid squabbles, bombast and competing interests, what can Cop30 achieve?
Climate summit in Brazil needs to find way to stop global heating accelerating amid stark divisions
www.theguardian.com
November 9, 2025 at 7:53 AM
What Climate Future Do We Want?
#COP30 is underway but is climate change still to be a priority?
Our 'past warm worlds' serve as useful reminders of what legacy we will leave for our children and grandchildren if we aren't ambitious on #ClimateAction
November 6, 2025 at 11:14 PM
Reposted by Matthew L. Staitis
Alkenone-based #temperature #reconstructions from marine sediments based on #spectral #imaging seems to be a very promising technique for high-resolution climate reconstructions. Looking forward to seeing this develop further!
egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/20...
Microscale Alkenone Heterogeneity and Replicability of Ultra-High-Resolution Temperature Records from Marine Sediments
Abstract. The alkenone-derived UK37 proxy is crucial for the reconstruction of past sea surface temperatures in marine sedimentary archives. Recent advances in mass spectrometry imaging (MSI) now allo...
egusphere.copernicus.org
October 30, 2025 at 6:48 AM
Reposted by Matthew L. Staitis
🥳 It's out!
The latest PAGES Mag on "New Analytical Techniques in #Paleoscience" is online!
🌍 This issue highlights how novel imaging methods and machine-learning approaches are revolutionizing paleoscientific research and expanding our ability to decode past Earth’s history.
🔗 shorturl.at/LOJj5
October 29, 2025 at 1:28 PM
Reposted by Matthew L. Staitis
Monsoon-like climate over Europe during the warm and CO2 high Eocene inferred from a bit of modeling and a few years recoded in a shell of a giant sea snail. 🧪⚒️
October 30, 2025 at 5:41 AM
Reposted by Matthew L. Staitis
Just realised that this is as close to an "M2-M2" project as you are likely to get.

Explore the aftermath of one of the most interesting features of the Pliocene, MIS M2 during your M2 internship!

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
October 27, 2025 at 4:12 PM
Reposted by Matthew L. Staitis
Looking forward to exciting new future collaborations as equal partner in the joint continent ⛰️ and ocean 🌊 Scientific Drilling Forum, held in Sicily last week to strengthen international collaboration in Earth science research 🤝
October 21, 2025 at 11:43 AM
Reposted by Matthew L. Staitis
ICDP Workshop PROTEA (Klerksdorp, South Africa)🇿🇦: 59 international scientists met up in South Africa from 16-17 Oct. 2025 under the topic "Probing the heart of an earthquake and life in the deep subsurface"
👉 More project info: www.icdp-online.org/projects/by-...
October 20, 2025 at 8:40 AM
Reposted by Matthew L. Staitis
It can not be exaggerated just how wild the climate of the Pleistocene was in which we evolved. All of recorded history is in pixel at the very top of the very last zigzag, all the way to the right of this graph. From a new paper on sea level over past 4.5 million yrs www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
October 17, 2025 at 4:23 PM
Reposted by Matthew L. Staitis
Each new year of climate data makes our future projections more accurate, without adding noise.

New study shows observational updates sharpen climate forecasts and confirm human-caused warming is a stable, reliable metric.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Towards annual updating of forced warming to date and constrained climate projections - Nature Communications
This study shows that incorporating observations from every new year in constrained projections of forced warming improves estimates of the expected warming in response to different emission scenarios...
www.nature.com
October 17, 2025 at 12:45 PM
Reposted by Matthew L. Staitis
Cool new Exp382 study out in @natcomms.nature.com showing an extreme poleward shift of ACC during the last interglacial.
The coolest thing is that it confirms our 2024 results using fast and non-destructive XRF. 🤩

1) www.nature.com/articles/s41...

2) publications.iodp.org/proceedings/...
October 14, 2025 at 2:07 PM
Reposted by Matthew L. Staitis
Reposted by Matthew L. Staitis
Reposted by Matthew L. Staitis
We need to talk more about the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Whether or not you call it a tipping point, loss of its marine based part now looks inevitable. This equates to a commitment to more than 3 m of global mean sea level rise. Complete loss may take several hundred years, but it is underway.
October 13, 2025 at 9:23 AM
Reposted by Matthew L. Staitis
The land sunk has typically absorbed 25-33% of our emissions, it didn’t in 2023/24. What happens if it globally systematically shrinks, as it has for Canada? www.newscientist.com/article/2497...
One of Earth’s most vital carbon sinks is faltering. Can we save it?
For decades, forest, grasslands and other land ecosystems have collectively absorbed up to a third of the carbon dioxide we emit each year - but this climate buffer may be collapsing far sooner than a...
www.newscientist.com
October 10, 2025 at 4:23 AM
Reposted by Matthew L. Staitis
A new Nature study on the four horsemen of the climate-tipping-points apocalypse: "the Greenland Ice Sheet, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, the South American monsoon system and the Amazon rainforest."
Destabilization of Earth system tipping elements - Nature Geoscience
A review of observation-based evidence suggests that four interconnected Earth system tipping elements have moved towards their critical thresholds, highlighting the need for better monitoring and increased mitigation efforts.
www.nature.com
October 8, 2025 at 6:34 PM
Reposted by Matthew L. Staitis
Reposted by Matthew L. Staitis
A new paleoclimate study links stronger ocean stratification to past ‘lukewarm’ interglacials, but points to lower ocean carbon sequestration in the future.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

#climatechange #oceans #stratification #sequestration #paleoclimate #interglacial
Enhanced deep Southern Ocean stratification during the lukewarm interglacials - Nature Communications
Lead (Pb) isotopes from a ferromanganese crust reveal that during lukewarm interglacials before the Mid-Brunhes Event, stronger deep Southern Ocean stratification limited CO2 release, helping keep atmospheric CO2 levels lower.
www.nature.com
October 7, 2025 at 10:56 AM
Reposted by Matthew L. Staitis
📢 @icdpdrilling.bsky.social Proposal Call for Pre-, Workshop, Full and our NEW ❗Fast-track Proposals is now open

📅 Deadline: 15 January 2026
📧 Submit via: proposal.submission@icdp-online.org

ℹ️ www.icdp-online.org/all-events/d...
October 2, 2025 at 11:57 AM
Returning from my 2-day lab visit to National Oceanography Centre University of Southampton preparing my foram samples for Laser Ablation (LA-MS) and Isotope Ratio (IRMS) Mass Spectrometry. Many thanks to Professor J. Andy Milton and Bastian Hambach for making this possible 🔬🐚🧪💥⚛️
October 3, 2025 at 4:24 PM
Reposted by Matthew L. Staitis
🌳 Trees help fight #ClimateChange by capturing #Carbon from the air and storing it.

Explore our new carbon content in the Climate Change Hub to see how you can help enhance carbon stocks and contribute to #ClimateAction.

🔗 www.forestresearch.gov.uk/climate-chan...
September 30, 2025 at 8:12 AM