Research Interests
My interest is to improve the understanding of Indian Ocean climatology, the Indo-Asian and African monsoon dynamics: the forcing-response relationship at orbital and glacial-interglacial time scale. I have a special interest in the strong western boundary current of South Africa, i.e the Agulhas current, its variability, global climatic impact and its effect on regional African climate. Further research interests include the development and the comparison of different quantitative sea surface temperature and salinity reconstruction tools.
I have strong interests in data-climate model comparisons. I perform climate simulations of stable isotopes in the three-dimensional coupled numerical model of intermediate complexity iLOVECLIM for specific time periods. The results are integrated with paleoclimatic reconstructions to evaluate the model and improved our understanding of climate proxies, isotopic processes and the climate system. I also realize syntheses of global paleoclimatic data for stable isotopes in continental and marine realms.
I have recent interests for African past climate and its link to Hominin evolution.
Research projects
Principal investigator:
(2021-2025) ANR JCJC HYDRATE (evaluate the low latitude HYDrological cycle in numeRicAl climate models by consTraining past ocean salinity changEs).
(2022-2026) Réseaux de Recherche Impulsion / ORIGINS : De l’origine de la matière et des systèmes planétaires à l’évolution du climat. Leader Challenge III: Towards a comparative (exo)-planetary climatology.
(2020-2021) Mammalian faunas from the Middle Awash, Ethiopia, OASU.
(2018-2019) COBRAS (Climatic role on HOmo sapiens dispersal Bypassing the aRAbian peninsula), EPOC.
(2017-2018) Dynamic of past Agulhas leakage, IODP France.
(2017-2019) Seasalt (Nouvelles méthodes de quantification des salinités de l’océan Indien et dynamique de la mousson asiatique), LEFE-IMAGO.
Collaborator:
(2020-2022) CLIMOZA (Glacial/Interglacial climate changes in the Mozambique Channel and impact on surface, subsurface and deep-water circulation), LEFE-IMAGO.
(2019-2020) Ecusson (Evolution Climatique autour de la grotte de CUSSac par la géOchimie de ses concrétioNs calcaires au cours de l’Holocène), OASU.
(2016-2019) Belmont ANR PACMEDY (Impacts des facteurs locaux et distaux sur la dynamique des systèmes de mousson africain, indien et d’Amérique du Sud au cours des derniers 6000 ans).
(2017-2018) Bycephal (Le climat de l’île de Pâques au cours des derniers millénaires.), LEFE-IMAGO.
Key words and activities
Orbital and glacial-interglacial time scale
|
Quaternary chronology, glacial-interglacial cyclicity and insolation forcing. d18O LR04 from Lisiecki and Raymo (2005), orbital parameters and insolation from Laskar et al. (2004). (Modified from Caley (2011) Phd thesis) |
|
iLOVECLIM model
|
Scketch of the iLOVECLIM climate model. (D. Roche, personal communication) iLOVECLIM consorsium website |
|
|
Data-Model comparison. Simulated ocean calcite d18O for the present day with iLOVECLIM and comparison with calcite d18O measurements of various foraminifera species. (Modified from Caley and Roche, 2013 Geoscientific Model Development) |
|
Indo-Asian monsoon
|
Comparison between annual mean calcite d18O computed with iLOVECLIM and Sanbao, Hulu and Dongge cave records. Spatio-temporal correlation between d18O in precipitation and precipitation rate within iLOVECLIM. (Modified from Caley et al., 2014 Nature comm.) |
|
Agulhas current
|
(a) Current distribution of foraminiferal species (ratio IOTG/(IOTG + SOG) in percent) in core top sediments of the Indian and South Atlantic regions. Modeled ratio IOTG/(IOTG + SOG) (in percent) with model INALT01 (Durgadoo et al., 2013). (Modified from Caley et al., 2014 GRL) |
|
Climate and Human evolution
|
a) ln (Fe/Ca) ratio in sediment core MD96-2048 as a proxy of precipitation changes in the Limpopo River catchment. The gray frame indicates a relatively wetter period and the red frame a relatively more arid period combined with extreme multi-millennial hydrological changes. b) Estimated age for main sites containing remains of the hominin Paranthropus robustus (Cooper’s D, Drimolen, Swartkrans, and Gondolin) and Australopithecus sediba (Malapa) (modified from Caley et al., 2018 Nature). SK 48, a subcomplete cranium of Paranthropus robustus from Swartkrans, South Africa (credit: Ditsong National Museum of Natural History / Kristian Carlson & Tea Jashashvili) |
|