Gavin Foster
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thefosterlab.bsky.social
Gavin Foster
@thefosterlab.bsky.social

Palaeoclimatologist and isotope geochemist at the University of Southampton. Love/hate relationship with mass spectrometers. Researcher of climate science, coral reefs, biomineralisation, laser ablation, isotopes and geology. Views my own .. more

Environmental science 45%
Geology 24%
Pinned
Fully funded PhD projects available in my group (Please share with interested parties, details here: www.thefosterlab.org/blog/2025/11...):
PhD Topics - Entry September 2026 — The Foster Lab
This year we are involved in 3 fully funded PhD projects via IGNITE our NERC DLA. The deadline is Thursday Jan 8th 2026 .  1.      Is the world already 1.5 C warmer?...
www.thefosterlab.org

Reposted by Gavin L. Foster

If you’re in the global 1% with ~ $1 million in wealth, you’ve used up your ‘fair’ share of the 2026 carbon budget in just 10 days.

Inequality is literally fueling the climate crisis.

www.theguardian.com/environment/...
World’s richest 1% have already used fair share of emissions for 2026, says Oxfam
Richest 1% took 10 days while wealthiest 0.1% needed just three days to exhaust annual carbon budget, study shows
www.theguardian.com

Reposted by Gavin L. Foster

The arithmetics of glacial till from the Suffolk plateau: Jurassic Kimmeridge Clay + Cretaceous Chalk + Pliocene Crag + Pleistocene erratics from W Midlands, E Midlands, Pennines, Northumbria, Scotland, N Sea, etc, mashed under a colossal ice sheet = the Lowestoft Till.
It's a beast of a deposit.
SHOCK CELL PHONE VIDEO: Renee Good's final words to her murderer: “That’s fine dude, I’m not mad at you.”

ICE agent Jonathan Ross after shooting and killing her seconds later: “Fuckin’ bitch.”

Via Alpha News
Our latest: Independent origins of spicules reconcile paleontological and molecular evidence of sponge evolutionary history, led by @meleonora-rossi.bsky.social with help from friends @bristolpalaeo.bsky.social including @anariesgo.bsky.social @evopalaeo.bsky.social Davide Pisani and many others
Independent origins of spicules reconcile paleontological and molecular evidence of sponge evolutionary history
Sponges have a cryptic Ediacaran history because ancestral sponges were soft-bodied and had low fossilization potential.
www.science.org

Agreed - definitely, I like to think that social mobility is still possible. I meant more that it’s an illustration of the entrenched inequalities in the wider system. Privilege and opportunity are still too closely tied.

…to improve the “quality” of students applying…

All that is wrong with the U.K. in one sentence.

www.theguardian.com/education/20...
Cambridge college to target elite private schools for student recruitment
Exclusive: Trinity Hall’s new policy described as a ‘slap in the face’ for state-educated students
www.theguardian.com
⚒️ Article: Glaciers in New Zealand retreated at about the same time as mid-latitude glaciers in the Northern Hemisphere during Heinrich Stadials, indicating strong global teleconnections during the last glacial period

@ifremer.bsky.social

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Synchronous bipolar retreat of mid-latitude ice masses during Heinrich Stadials - Nature Geoscience
Glaciers in New Zealand retreated at about the same time as mid-latitude glaciers in the Northern Hemisphere during Heinrich Stadials, indicating strong global teleconnections during the last glacial ...
www.nature.com
The rate of global mean sea level rise has increased from ~2.1 mm/year in 1993 to ~4.5 mm/year in 2023. www.nature.com/articles/s43...
The rate of global sea level rise doubled during the past three decades - Communications Earth & Environment
Global mean sea level rise amounted to 4.5 mm per year as a result of warming oceans and melting land ice, more than twice the rate of 2.1 mm/year observed at the start of satellite data in 1993, base...
www.nature.com
Expect to see a lot of this classic Onion headline, from 23 years ago, over the coming weeks.

Wow - that is genius. Lovely (and a nice result too)

Reposted by Gavin L. Foster

January 2, 1833, re-establishment of British rule over the Falkland Islands. The HMS Beagle will visit later that year and Charles Darwin is the 1st naturalist to geologize there. He collects some Devonian brachiopods and crinoids, at the time some of the oldest animals known from the fossil record.
A picture is worth 1000 words...

This appeared on the BBC News today, showing the increase in solar electric generation in the UK.

Not sure who produced it, but genuinely think this is a genius piece of scientific communication - the construct and choice of colour scale is near-perfect.

Chapeau!

Reposted by Gavin L. Foster

Reposted by Gavin L. Foster

Britain is missing out on up to £100m for every week that a landmark deal with the European Union is not in place, according to new research that has prompted calls for Keir Starmer to urgently break the Brexit economic “doom loop”

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/poli...
Delay to post-Brexit deal costs UK £100m a week, analysis shows
Labour government hits out at critics, denouncing it as a ‘shame’ that they are not supporting its progress in forging closer ties with the EU
www.independent.co.uk

Reposted by Gavin L. Foster

fossil fuel industry propaganda posing as Trump idiocy

Reposted by Gavin L. Foster

Nigel Farage would bring back fox hunting…

Britons support trail hunting ban by 50% to 29% (including Reform UK supporters)

t.co/Qk0Zh3PEAN
https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/53792-britons-support-trail-hunting-ban-by-50-to-29
t.co
For his incredible contribution to tackling climate change, Committee member Professor Piers Forster has been awarded a CBE in the New Year Honours 2026 🏆

Read our statement:
www.theccc.org.uk/2025/12/30/p...
Professor Piers Forster awarded CBE in New Year Honours - Climate Change Committee
The Committee and secretariat congratulate Professor Piers Forster on being awarded a CBE in the New Year Honours list.
www.theccc.org.uk
Congratulations to Piers Forster, Stephen Belcher and Gideon Henderson for well deserved CBEs in the New Year’s Honours!
This is a good primer on the ocean.
What do the oceans do for us? - The Climate Question podcast, BBC World Service
YouTube video by BBC World Service
youtu.be

Reposted by Gavin L. Foster

Top 10 climate disasters cost planet $122bn in 2025 – with one continent hit hardest (Asia)

www.independent.co.uk/climate-chan...
Top 10 climate disasters cost planet $122bn – with one continent hit hardest
Many deaths and full extent of damage in poorer countries go missing from global because they are not insured, report finds
www.independent.co.uk

Reposted by Gavin L. Foster

100 years of November temperature anomalies over land areas through 2025...

Data from NOAAGlobalTemp v6.0.0: www.ncei.noaa.gov/products/lan...

Finland's underground data centers heat entire city blocks using server waste heat #Tech #FutureTech #Engineering #SaturdayMotivation

Reposted by Gavin L. Foster

December 27, 1831, HMS Beagle with 22-year-old naturalist/geologist Charles Darwin on board departs Plymouth harbor, England, for a survey of South America - it will become a 5-year-long geologizing voyage around the world ⚒️
www.bressan-geoconsult.eu/darwin-the-g...

Reposted by Gavin L. Foster

December 27, 1984, the (in)famous Martian meteorite ALH 84001 is discovered in Antarctica ☄️
...
This is Richard Smith of the South Durham Hunt and he thinks it’s ok to hit a horse over the head. Make this ‘man’ famous.

Reposted by Gavin L. Foster

Reform and Tories 'defending cruelty' over support for trail hunting

Who would have guessed
www.mirror.co.uk/news/politic...
Reform and Tories 'defending cruelty' over support for trail hunting
The Reform UK leader Nigel Farage was pictured at a hunt on Friday, as was Tory MP Kevin Hollinrake, despite foxes still often being torn to shreds by dogs at the events
www.mirror.co.uk

Reposted by Gavin L. Foster

December 25, 1893, birthday of Isabel Clifton Cookson, Australian biologist who specialized in paleobotany and palynology
...

Reposted by Gavin L. Foster

#exocean advent calendar day 24!
Today we thought it was a good fit to show an image/talk about “conception”…
One of the thing we (try to) do best at ExoCean is planktonic foraminifera reproduction. Here two immaculate mummies… 😏

We would like to wish you all a beautiful Christmas Eve!

Reposted by Gavin L. Foster

Look at it this way

Or this way, or this way. Graphing UK temperature data a bunch of different ways and failing to decide which is best or even what best means.

diagrammonkey.wordpress.com/2025/12/24/l...
Look at it this way
I saw an interesting discussion about this graph from the BBC on bluesky. I don’t like the graph for a few reasons. The first is that it uses two different elements to show the same thing: th…
diagrammonkey.wordpress.com