Geography and Environment

Keith Barber

Primary position:
Professor Emeritus of Quaternary Palaeoecology

I retired on 1 October 2009 after 40 years of continuous service at the University of Southampton, during which time I founded and built up the Palaeoecology Laboratory (PLUS) as an internationally recognised centre for research into the Holocene, the period since the end of the last glacial stage some 11,000 years ago. Now, as an Emeritus Professor in the School of Geography and Environment, I hope to remain research active for many years in collaboration with past and present members of PLUS, and to continue to publish useful research in palaeoecology and past climatic changes.

I have always supported the Quaternary Research Association and was honoured to be elected an Honorary Member of the QRA in 2010. I gave the Royal Geographical Society Lecture at the Annual Discussion Meeting of the QRA in London, January 2008, and on 9 April 2009, following the annual field meeting of the QRA at Southampton, my impending retirement was marked by Quaternary science colleagues through a day meeting, organised by my PLUS colleagues, of papers followed by a celebratory dinner.

Professor Keith Barber's photo

The University of Southampton's electronic library (e-prints)

Article

Daley, Timothy J., Thomas, Elizabeth R., Holmes, Jonathan A., Street-Perrott, F. Alayne, Chapman, Mark R., Tindall, Julia C., Valdes, Paul J., Loader, Neil J., Marshall, James D., Wolff, Eric W., Hopley, Philip J., Barber, Keith E., Atkinson, Tim, Fisher, Elizabeth H., Robertson, Iain, Hughes, Paul D.M. and Roberts, C. Neil (2011) The 8200yr BP cold event in stable isotope records from the North Atlantic region. Global and Planetary Change, 79, (3-4), 288-302. (doi:10.1016/j.gloplacha.2011.03.006)
Daley, T.J., Barber, K.E., Street-Perrott, F.A., Loader, N.J., Marshall, J.D., Crowley, S.F. and Fisher, E.H. (2010) Holocene climate variability revealed by oxygen isotope analysis of Sphagnum cellulose from Walton Moss, northern England. Quaternary Science Reviews, 29, (13-14), 1590-1601. (doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2009.09.017)
Daley, T.J., Street-Perrott, F.A., Loader, N.J., Barber, K.E., Hughes, P.D.M., Fisher, E.H. and Marshall, J.D. (2009) Terrestrial climate signal of the "8200-yr cold event" in the Labrador Sea region. Geology, 37, (9), 831-834.
Charman, Dan J., Barber, Keith E., Blaauw, Maarten, Langdon, Pete G, Mauquoy, Dmitri, Daley, Tim J., Hughes, Paul D.M. and Karofeld, Edgar (2009) Climate drivers for peatland palaeoclimate records. Quaternary Science Reviews, 28, 1811-1818. (doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2009.05.013)
Coombes, Paul M.V., Chiverrell, Richard C. and Barber, Keith E. (2009) A high-resolution pollen and geochemical analysis of late Holocene human impact and vegetation history in southern Cumbria, England. Journal of Quaternary Science, 24, 224-236. (doi:10.1002/jqs.1219)
Barber, Keith, Langdon, Peter and Blundell, Antony (2008) Dating the Glen Garry tephra: a widespread late-Holocene marker horizon in the peatlands of Northern Britain. The Holocene, 18, (1), 31-43. (doi:10.1177/0959683607085594)
Battarbee, R.W., Birks, H.J.B., Barber, K., Thompson, R., Dearing, J.A. and Matthews, J. (2008) Frank Oldfield and his contributions to environmental change research. The Holocene, 18, (1), 3-17. (doi:10.1177/0959683607085780)
Blundell, Antony, Charman, Dan J. and Barber, Keith (2007) Multiproxy late Holocene peat records from Ireland: towards a regional palaeoclimate curve. Journal of Quaternary Science, 23, (1), 59-71. (doi:10.1002/jqs.1115)
Yeloff, Dan, Mauquoy, Dmitri, Barber, Keith, Way, Susannah, van Geel, Bas and Turney, Chris S.M. (2007) Volcanic ash deposition and long-term vegetation change on subantarctic Marion Island. Arctic, Antarctic and Alpine Research, 39, (3), 500-511. (doi:10.1657/1523-0430(06-040)[YELOFF]2.0.CO;2)
Lomas-Clarke, Sarah H. and Barber, Keith E. (2006) Human impact signals from peat bogs: a combined palynological and geochemical approach. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany(doi:10.1007/s00334-006-0085-3)
Langdon, P.G. and Barber, K.E. (2001) New Holocene tephras and a proxy climate record from a blanket mire in northern Skye, Scotland. Journal of Quaternary Science, 16, (8), 753-759. (doi:10.1002/jqs.655)
Hart, Jane K., Barber, Keith, Payne, Tony, Hughes, Paul and Lowe, John (2001) Editorial. Millennial-scale changes in the late Quaternary record. Journal of Quaternary Science, 16, (4), 297-298. (doi:10.1002/jqs.623)

Book Section

Grant, M.J., Barber, K.E. and Hughes, P.D.M. (2009) Early to mid-Holocene vegetation-fire interactions and responses to climatic change at Cranes Moor, New Forest. In, Briant, R.M., Bates, M.R. and Hosfield, R.T. (eds.) The Quaternary of the Solent Basin and West Sussex Raised Beaches: Field Guide. London, GB, Quaternary Research Association, 198-214.
Grant, M.J., Barber, K.E. and Hughes, P.D.M. (2009) True ancient woodland? – 10,000 years of continuous woodland cover at Mark Ash Wood, New Forest. In, Briant, R.M., Bates, M.R. and Hosfield, R.T. (eds.) The Quaternary of the Solent Basin and West Sussex Raised Beaches: Field Guide. London, GB, Quaternary Research Association, 215-229.

Conference or Workshop Item

Mallon, Gunnar, Hughes, Paul and Barber, Keith (2010) Palaeoecological records of Holocene climate change: evidence from the peat archive. At British Ecological Society Annual Discussion Meeting, Leeds, GB, 07 - 09 Sep 2010.
Mallon, Gunnar, Hughes, Paul and Barber, Keith (2010) Patterns of atmospheric moisture availability - past climate change across NW Europe. At Faculty of Engineering, Science and Mathematics showcast event,
Mallon, Gunnar, Hughes, Paul and Barber, Keith (2010) Patterns of atmospheric moisture availability - past climate change across NW Europe. At Faculty of Engineering, Science and Mathematics Showcast Event,
 

Research Interests

My twin research interests in peat stratigraphy and past human impact were sparked off while growing up in my native Northumberland and neighbouring Cumberland, counties with plenty of peaty places and of course the Roman Wall – a very visual impact on the landscape! As an undergraduate at Bristol University I studied Geography and Botany, an ideal combination for my subsequent research, which I pursued as a postgraduate at Lancaster University under the supervision of palaeoecologist Frank Oldfield and climatic historian Gordon Manley. My PhD, published by Balkema as Peat Stratigraphy and climatic change: a palaeoecological test of the theory of cyclic peat bog regeneration, formally refuted the autogenic theory of bog growth that had held sway since the early 20th century, and showed that climate controlled peat stratigraphy through shifts in the water table. This allowed changes in stratigraphy, analysed through plant macrofossils, humification and testate amoebae, to be used as proxy climate records which could be related to documented climate over the last few centuries and extended back to almost the beginning of the Holocene. Quantification of the records, first explored in a seminal 1994 paper*, led to a burgeoning literature on climatic change derived from peat, much of it by the 26 PhD students I have supervised, and by associated postdocs, some of whom have gone on to leading academic positions in palaeoenvironmental research.

I have been awarded a succession of NERC grants, studentships and radiocarbon allocations with which my group and collaborators have shown that the palaeoclimate records from peatlands can be correlated over much of Europe and across to Newfoundland, and are probably controlled by cyclic changes in the North Atlantic Ocean, linking to similarly paced changes in ocean sediment cores.

I participated in the International Geological Correlation Programme 158 on ‘Palaeohydrology of the temperate zone in the last 15,000 years’ during the 1980s, and was a Principal Investigator on two NERC Thematic Programme grants under the Palaeoclimate initiative and the TIGGER programme in the 1990s. I was Lead Co-ordinator of IGBP PAGES (Past Global Changes)/ PEP III (Pole-Equator-Pole, African-Europe transect) programme, 1998-2002, contributing to a major research monograph (2004). I was more recently (2003-2008) a Co-Investigator on the project ISOMAP-UK: a combined data – modelling investigation of water isotopes and their interpretation during rapid climate change events, part of the major NERC RAPID Climate Change thematic programme. This latest advance, in collaboration with colleagues at Swansea University, has involved the novel use of species-specific stable isotope analyses to yield coupled records of δ18O and δD which have been compared with our established palaeoecological records and which are being used in calibrating and validating an advanced modelling experiment.

My research into prehistoric and historic human impact on the British landscape have paralleled my work on climate change and I have an abiding interest in the impact of climatic change on human society in the past. Using mainly high-resolution pollen analyses, and more recently geochemical analyses of peat and lake sediments, my group has contributed to the debates surrounding the impact of the Romans in Northern Britain, in particular around Hadrian’s Wall; the landscape changes wrought by the rise and dissolution of the monasteries, and the historical period of human impact in the Severn catchment, south and central Wales, Scotland, the New Forest and especially Cumbria.

It is now a far cry from my early days in research when the norm was to publish chapters in edited books or in non-Quaternary journals and I am therefore a committed supporter of the QRA’s Journal of Quaternary Science, in which I have published, with others, a number of papers, along with articles in Quaternary Science Reviews and The Holocene. For many years I was the only fulltime academic in PLUS, working with research technicians and postgraduates. I have retired happy to see that the research group now comprises four professors, two senior lecturers, two research technicians, two visiting research staff and a number of postdocs and postgraduates.

* Barber, K. E., Chambers, F. M., Maddy, D., Stoneman, R. E. & Brew, J. S. 1994. A sensitive high-resolution record of Late Holocene climatic change from a raised bog in Northern England. The Holocene, 4, 198 - 205.

(Some of the above comes from the citation for my Honorary Membership of the QRA, published in Quaternary Newsletter, no. 120, February 2010).

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Primary research group:  Palaeoenvironmental Laboratory at the University of Southampton (PLUS)

None now, but in past years I have, for example, served as:-

  • Member of the NERC Radiocarbon Steering Committee (1999-2003).
  • Leader of the School’s Environmental Processes and Change research theme.
  • Served on the School’s RAE 2008 Committee.
  • Director of PLUS
  • Member of Senate (1976-79; 1981-83; 1990-93 and 1996-99) and Council (1990-93), and various associated committees and working parties.

Professor Keith Barber
Geography and Environment
Shackleton Building 44
University of Southampton
University Road
Southampton
SO17 1BJ

Room Number: 44/2025

Telephone: (023) 8059 3215
Facsimile: (023) 8059 3295
Email: Keith.Barber@soton.ac.uk