Prof Rob Wilson

Prof Rob Wilson

Head of School of Earth and Environmental Sciences

Professor

Researcher profile

Phone
+44 (0)1334 46 3914
Email
rjsw@st-andrews.ac.uk

 

Research areas

I am a tree-ring scientist – a so-called Dendrochronologist. My main research focusses on late Holocene palaeoclimatology (the Common Era) with specific emphasis on the use of tree-ring archives to understand the drivers of climate and environmental change. I have been involved in local/regional studies in Europe, North/South America as well as Australasia and have led initiatives to understand large scale climate change at Hemispheric scales.

The extreme nature of our current climate state has led me to explore the impact of such changes on forest ecosystems. There are precious few locations in the world where climate change does not have a significant impact of woodland systems. These environmental changes not only impact our assumptions of a stable tree-growth response to climate – so important for basic principles in palaeoclimatology – but also the very health of these systems. Woodlands are the lungs of our planet, and we need to better understand how they may, or may not, adapt to the climate changes of the coming decades.

"Between every two pines is a doorway to a new world." - John Muir.

PhD supervision

  • Kayleigh Letherbarrow
  • Frederik Märker

Selected publications

 

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