Rob McKay
Rob McKay | |
---|---|
Born | Robert Murray McKay |
Nationality | New Zealander |
Alma mater | Victoria University of Wellington |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Glaciology and climate science |
Institutions | Victoria University of Wellington Antarctic Research Centre |
Thesis | Late Cenozoic (13-0 Myr) Glacimarine Sedimentology, Facies Analysis, and Sequence Stratigraphy from the Western Ross Embayment, Antarctica: Implications for the Variability of the Antarctic Ice Sheets (2008) |
Doctoral advisors | Tim Naish Peter Barrett |
Robert Murray McKay is a
Education and career
McKay attended
Research
McKay has been involved in research that explored how stability in the Antarctic oceans and ice sheets could be linked to historical changes in the climate over millions of years. He said that "uncertainty about how Antarctic ice sheets will respond to global warming remains one of the most important issues facing climate change scientists...[and]...better knowledge in this area has particular relevance for New Zealand because we sit at a major gateway where water from Antarctica enters the world's oceans".
The lack of certainty around exactly how the Antarctic ice sheet would respond to anthropogenic climate forcing was highlighted in a review of the literature co-authored by McKay. The review considered the "future estimates and consequences of global sea level rise from melting of the AIS, and highlight[ed] priority research areas...[because]...The Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) is the largest potential source of and most uncertain contributor to global sea level rise...[and]...The response of the AIS to anthropogenic climate warming in terms of the time scales of ice loss and where the ice loss occurs, will depend on the extent of climate warming and interactions between the ice sheet and the atmosphere, ocean, and the solid Earth".[10] McKay had participated in earlier research that aimed to inform scientific understanding of the response of both the West and East Antarctic Ice Sheet during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), and confirmed that some of the evidence was "poorly documented...[urging]...the geological community to target the many regions of the ice sheet where data are lacking...in particular, more chronological work is required".[11]
He has stressed the importance of understanding the role of sea ice in keeping carbon dioxide in the ocean rather than the atmosphere and the implications if human activity caused more warming, leading to the melting of the ice and subsequent rise in sea levels, which geological records of melting ice sheets that at the end of the last ice age, 20,000 years ago, suggested could rise at the level of 1 metre per century. To explore the question of how much warming was required to melt the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, McKay was involved in research collecting marine sediments from under the ice sheet. This research showed that in the mid
A paper co-authored by McKay in 2016 reviewed the evidence gathered from ANDRILL-2A core samples of how the ice sheet reacted to variations of
Research in 2020 in which McKay was involved, explored why in recent decades, contrary to models generally showing a decrease, Antarctic sea-ice has increased while the ice shelf has thinned. A Holocene sediment core off East Antarctica was examined and showed that there had been a rapid sea-ice increase during the mid-Holocene period, despite melting glaciers and climate warming. The study concluded that there was a "data-model mismatch...[and suggested]...better representation of the role of evolving ice shelf cavities on oceanic water mass evolution and sea-ice dynamics... will be fundamental to understanding the oceanographic and glaciological implications of future ice shelf loss in the Antarctic...[and]...Incorporating this feedback mechanism into global climate models will be important for future projections of Antarctic changes".[13] Subsequent work on this core showed biological productivity in this region was heavily influenced by sea ice break up events associated with the El Nino Southern Oscillation.[14]
Specific research projects
McKay has explained that when he joined
By 2018 McKay was co-chief scientist the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) and one of a team of 30 international scientists that went to Antarctica on the JOIDES Resolution research vessel and conducted a project known as Expedition 374 that drilled under the sea bed of the Ross Sea.[18] The object was to get samples that could provide insight into what happened to the ice sheets over the past 20 million years ago during a time of global warming and how this could predict possible collapse of the ice sheet and result in a rising sea levels. McKay said that there was evidence that it had happened before, and "we know that from just simple physics that if you raise greenhouse gas concentrations, the temperature will go up."[19]
In 2013 he was awarded a Rutherford Discovery Fellowship administered by the Royal Society of New Zealand for a project entitled: Antarctic Ice Sheet-Southern Ocean interactions during greenhouse worlds of the past 23 million years – and consequences for New Zealand climate.[20] In 2016 and 2019 he was awarded Royal Society of New Zealand Marsden Fund Grants as a Principal Investigator, to investigate the role of past ocean and ice sheet change. The Rutherford Discovery Fellowships are aimed at scientists and in their early-to mid-career, and Tim Naish, who was Director of the Antarctic Research Team at the time, noted that recipients needed to have "proven research excellence...[and become]...leaders in their respective areas."[21]
Awards
For his contributions to developing an understanding of the implications of historical environmental change in the Antarctica for ongoing global warming, McKay received the New Zealand Prime Minister's MacDiarmid Emerging Scientist Prize 2011.
He was part of team of scientists that won the Prime Minister's Science Prize, Aotearoa New Zealand in 2019 for their research that showed the "Antarctic melt due to climate change could contribute to global sea level rise of 1.4 metres by the year 2100, rather than the one metre predicted back in 2013 by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)."[24]
McKay was awarded the 2020 Asahiko Taira Scientific Ocean Drilling Research Prize by the American Geophysical Union (AGU) for his "contributions to Antarctic glacial history, especially through scientific ocean drilling...[and in recognition of]...leadership in understanding the links between ice sheets and climate change."[25]
References
- ^ "Antarctic researcher among top science award winners". stuff. 16 December 2011. Archived from the original on 20 February 2022. Retrieved 22 November 2021.
- ^ (PDF) from the original on 23 November 2021. Retrieved 23 November 2021.
- ^ a b c "The Prime Minister's MacDiarmid Emerging Scientist Award Prize 2011". Menu Pae Tahua. 2011. Archived from the original on 22 January 2016. Retrieved 23 November 2021.
- ^ "Robert McKay Bio". Victoria University of Wellington Te Herenga Waka. Archived from the original on 21 November 2021. Retrieved 24 November 2021.
- from the original on 1 October 2023.
- ^ Wellington, Victoria University of (7 February 2023). "Promotion to Professor 2022". www.wgtn.ac.nz. Archived from the original on 7 February 2023. Retrieved 7 February 2023.
- ^ "About Us". Antarctic Science Platform. Archived from the original on 26 January 2022. Retrieved 24 November 2021.
- ^ "Antarctic Science Platform". Archived from the original on 26 January 2022. Retrieved 23 November 2021.
- ^ a b Morton, Jamie (5 June 2013). "Smart science: Ice free past points to daunting future". NZ Herald. Archived from the original on 23 November 2021. Retrieved 24 November 2021.
- S2CID 225443139.
- hdl:1854/LU-5767317.
- PMID 26903644.
- ^ (PDF) from the original on 6 January 2021. Retrieved 10 February 2022.
- ^ "Future of Antarctic plankton linked to sea ice, study shows – 10/09/2021". GNS Science Te Pu Ao. 10 September 2021. Archived from the original on 28 January 2022. Retrieved 10 January 2022.
- doi:10.1130/B26540.1. Archivedfrom the original on 20 January 2022. Retrieved 12 January 2022.
- ^ EurekAlert News Release (21 September 2009). "November/December 2009 GSA Bulletin highlights. Peer-reviewed publication, Geological Society of America". Archived from the original on 28 November 2021. Retrieved 28 November 2021.
- ^ "Scientists set to drill Antarctic coast". Otago Daily Times. 6 January 2010. Archived from the original on 24 November 2021. Retrieved 24 November 2021.
- ^ McKay, R.M.; De Santis, L.; et al. (10 August 2019). "Expedition 374 Summary" (PDF). International Ocean Discovery Program Publications. 374. Archived (PDF) from the original on 20 February 2022. Retrieved 6 December 2021.
- ^ Mead, Thomas (9 March 2018). "NZ scientists drill 700 metres into Antarctic ice to study climate change". Newshub. Archived from the original on 4 November 2021. Retrieved 4 November 2021.
- ^ "Search Rutherford Discovery Fellowship awards 2010–2017". Royal Society. 2013. Archived from the original on 23 November 2021. Retrieved 24 November 2021.
- ^ "Big success for Antarctic research team". Victoria University of Wellington Te Herenga Waka. 2016. Archived from the original on 23 November 2021. Retrieved 24 November 2021.
- ^ RNZ News (16 December 2011). "Top science award awarded to NIWA and Otago University". Radio New Zealand. Archived from the original on 27 November 2021. Retrieved 27 November 2021.
- ^ McAlister, Katie (19 January 2012). "Science winner to share wealth". Dominion Post. stuff. Archived from the original on 28 November 2021. Retrieved 29 November 2021.
- ^ "2019 Prime Minister's Science Prize". Prime Minister's Science Prizes Aotearoa New Zealand. Archived from the original on 27 November 2021. Retrieved 26 November 2021.
- ^ "Leadership in Antarctic drilling studies rewarded – University of Wellington". Voxy. Digital Advance Limited. 12 November 2020. Archived from the original on 22 November 2021. Retrieved 23 November 2021.