A University of Ulster researcher is set to star in a new television series which examines Ireland’s scientific contributions to the world. 

The Investigators is an RTE series which explores the potential impact of Irish science on our lives. 

This week’s episode takes a look at what scientists in Ireland are doing to understand climate change and features cutting-edge research being done by glacial geologists from Ulster’s School of Environmental Sciences, based in Coleraine.

Dr Paul Dunlop from the Environmental Science Research Institute and Dr Sara Benetti, from the Irish Marine Institute, who is joining the University of Ulster in January, have been analysing detailed images of the Irish seabed and have identified the same glacial landforms that we see on land, scattered on the continental shelf.

In this week’s programme the pair will reveal the implications of their research and explain the importance of their findings.

“Glaciers are dynamic systems that are sensitive to changes in the global climate system and the landforms left behind by glaciers from previous ice ages can be used to tell us about the nature and timing of major climatic events,” explains Dr Dunlop.

In August 2008, the pair along with fellow researcher, Professor Colm Ó Cofaigh from Durham University, led the first scientific cruise off the northwest coast of Ireland to core through these landforms and retrieved cores from waters as deep as 2.5 kilometers.

“Sediments recovered from the seabed are now being analysed to provide new detailed information about the nature and timing of glacial cycles across the North Atlantic,” says Dr Dunlop.

“The work will provide a critical new record on climate change for the region, and new proxy data on how the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets may respond to global warming.”

The Investigators will be broadcast on Thursday 20 November on RTE 1 at 11:05 pm.

For further details see: http://www.theinvestigators.ie/

For further information, please contact:

Trina Porter
Telephone: 028 71675511
Email: Trina Porter