Dr Tas van Ommen: PhD, BSc(Hons), Dip. Teach.
Research interests
My main research interests centre around ice core palaeoclimate studies, particularly high resolution palaeoclimate work extending back into the last glacial period. Our ice core group has done much of its work on the deep, high resolution Law Dome core which extends back approximately 90,000 years. The group is also involved in obtaining century-scale records from relatively near-coastal sites that give high resolution records like Law Dome.
Our work aims to provide detailed climate reconstructions and obtain calibrations for ice core data streams against modern meteorological data. We are interested in probing high and mid-latitude climate in the Indian Ocean and Australian sector particularly. This includes work to develop longer term climate reconstructions for the Australian region.
I am involved, through the International Partnerships in Ice Core Sciences (IPICS), in developing plans for recovering the oldest ice from the Antarctic ice sheet. As part of this interest, I am a lead investigator in the ICECAP airborne geophysical survey work covering East Antarctica out of Casey. This work involves collaboration with ice sheet dynamics researchers to link ice sheet dynamics and ice core data, to identify potential locations where oldest ice might be located, and to understand the history and evolution of the ice sheet (see related article Australian Antarctic Magazine 28:13–15, 2015).