Purdue News

August 28, 2003

Students take 'summer cruise' for climate change info

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – What did you do with your summer vacation? Eight Purdue University students took a cruise, but not to work on their suntans. These future scientists spent several weeks off the coast of Spain drilling cores of the sea bottom in search of evidence of climate change.

"We worked on the largest ship in the French research fleet," said Donald Koglin Jr., a graduate student in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences in Purdue's School of Science. "There were three scientific teams on board, and our task was to help process the cores for study and try to gauge what happened over the period of time each core represented."

While on board, the group attended lectures every day to help them comprehend the core samples, which are one way scientists extract details of the Earth's climate history.

"The most interesting thing I learned was that the global average sea level for the last couple thousand years is about the highest it's ever been," Koglin said. "According to one of the scientists on board, that is an indirect indication that we probably won't get much warmer than we are now."

Members of the group, including Eric Calais, their faculty supervisor, are available to discuss the trip and the study of climate change.

CONTACT: Koglin, (765) 494-0268, dkoglin@purdue.edu.