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Al Wanamaker off Ailsa Craig, located in the outer Firth (coastal waters) of Clyde, Scotland. 
Clamshells NEWS RELEASE 11-2-09 Contacts: Clamshells and climates: ISU researcher's studies AMES, Iowa – This fall, Alan Wanamaker and his paleoclimatology colleagues in Europe will submit a research paper with the world’s largest continuous record of its kind – a 700-year continuous master chronology of clamshells. The previous longest record is 500 years. The research is not only noteworthy for its chronology length, but also because Wanamaker and his colleagues found that clamshell growth can predict seawater temperature. They compared their clamshell records to seawater temperature and found that seawater temperature is a fundamental parameter in the clam’s growth. Wanamaker, assistant professor in geological and atmospheric sciences and director of the ISU Stable Isotope Laboratory, said the research is also exceptional because it’s difficult to obtain a 700-year, annualized record of seawater change with marine life such as clamshells. New to ISU this fall, Wanamaker researches paleoclimatology and isotope geochemistry. Wanamaker said he became “hooked” on climate research while teaching high school science for five years. He recently completed postdoctoral research at Bangor University. Wanamaker is part of the Climate of the Last Millennium, the largest European climate project. The group compiled historical records, tree ring and sediment research – “the gamut of research,” he said – and compiled the climate records. The paleodata is used to constrain the future of climate with the knowledge of what has happened in the past. Without the paleodata, using only instrumental data (usually only 100-150 years old), Wanamaker said the uncertainty range is plus or minus one degree Celsius, a large level of uncertainty. With the paleodata, the same model’s range of uncertainty goes down to a half degree Celsius. “It’s absolutely important to understand what happened in the past, because climate is based on statistics of everyday weather,” he said. His research focuses on reconstructing the climate north of Iceland at the Arctic Circle. He has also conducted research in Greenland, the Scottish Lochs, the Gulf of Maine and the Irish Sea. These areas are important because of their productive ecosystems. He studies clamshells because they live in the area of importance, record the ambient environment, are ubiquitous, can live over 400 years, and signal environmental changes as they grow. Wanamaker was interested in how the oceanography had changed in the last thousand years. His research allows him to reconstruct what seawater temperatures were in the past. His clamshell research showed that the waters in the Gulf of Maine had cooled one to two degrees Celsius from AD 1000 to AD 1900, and since then have begun to warm. The research is akin to detective work, he said. “The clues are there, but we have to know how to look at them, “ Wanamaker said. “It’s often easier to document what happened. It’s more often difficult to say why or how. We look at all of the data, put forth hypotheses from our research and continue to test with more data.” Wanamaker said it’s important to study climate change to see if trends are occurring beyond the natural range or if they’re within range. “By comparing the past and present, in an educated way we can suggest if the current climate, whether warming or cooling, is beyond the natural cycle or not.” Wanamaker is teaching introduction to oceanography and a paleoclimate class. His appointment includes research in the Stable Isotope Laboratory, a hands-on teaching and research facility for students and faculty. -30- |
