Deciphering Rainfall Variability
Paleoclimate, Paleoenvironments, Remote Sensing
Dr. Nick Scroxton
Assistant Professor of Climate Change
Department of Geography/Irish Climate Analysis and Research Units (ICARUS)
Maynooth University
Hello! I’m Nick and I'm an Assistant Professor of Climate Change at Maynooth University in Ireland. I specialize in tropical paleoclimatology, investigating the driving mechanisms behind past changes in rainfall to help better understand the climate system and to better predict future changes. I work on a variety of timescales and a variety of different methods to estimate rainfall amount.
Primarily, I’m a stalagmite geochemist. I use the changing chemical composition of calcite deposited layer by later in stalagmites and flowstones as a proxy for past changes in rainfall and environments. I use this tool to gain an idea of changes in rainfall at timescales ranging from sub-decadal to orbital (tens of thousands of years). I specialise in southern hemisphere tropical monsoon systems (working in Madagascar, Indonesia), but have interests in rainfall variability around the world, including Ireland.
I'm also interested in the context of paleoclimate. How does past changes in climate influence past environments. This includes everything from changes in vegetation growth to human evolution, megafaunal extinction and civilization collapse.
How can what we learn about past climates help us adapt to modern climate change? I am also interested in more recent changes in rainfall, comparing satellites estimates with observations to determine how these methodologies can help us understand the rainfall response to anthropogenic climate change. I have recently been working with Self Help Africa, an agricultural development NGO based in Dublin. Together we are using modern climate analysis and paleoclimate to produce better predictions of sub-saharan African rainfall. This will help Self Help Africa in their efforts to develop climate smart agriculture to ensure food security and climate change resilience in populations that rank amongst the poorest and most vulnerable in the world.
Publications
Working with many talented colleagues and co-authors, my peer-reviewed publications can be viewed here.
Teaching
The geosciences in general, and more specifically paleoclimatology, is an important and inherently fascinating subject. Teaching is perhaps one of the most important aspects of our job as scientists, and one I’m learning more about with every lecture, lab and field course.
Mentoring
Mentoring undergraduates as they take on their first research projects has been an unexpected source of pride and learning over the past couple of years. I have developed new skills of my own as I seek to encourage new scientists through effective mentoring.
Outreach
I study geosciences to help make the world a better place. How could I do this without communicating my results? Publishing in journals is just one facet of science communication. Getting our science to the general public and to students is just as important.
How climate disasters destroyed one of our earliest civilisations
In 2023, our research on the role of the 4.2kyr event and the decline of the Harappan Civilization was featured in articles on RTE Brainstorm, Nature and New Scientist.
Last of the giants: What killed off Madagascar’s megafauna a thousand years ago?
In 2019 we published a popular science article on the demise of the megafauna in Madagascar just 1100 years ago. It was published in The Conversation.
In the lab
In the field
Photographs on this site are typically taken by myself, except where credit is given. Some of the amazing in-cave shots come courtesy of Garry K. Smith at the Newcastle and Hunter Valley Speleological Society.