A postdoctoral researcher at Victoria University has received the 2011 Prime Minister’s MacDiarmid Emerging Scientist prize for his research into past environmental change in Antarctica and its implications for the current phase of global warming.

Dr Rob McKay from Victoria’s Antarctic Research Centre was presented with the prize, and a cheque for $200,000, by Prime Minsiter John Key at a function in Auckland today. 

Vice-Chancellor Professor Pat Walsh says he is very proud of Dr McKay’s success.

“He is an excellent and dedicated researcher, and it is wonderful to see our scientists being recognised at the highest level.

“Rob is the second Victoria scientist to receive this award in the three years the prizes have been presented, the other being Dr John Watt who was the inaugural Prime Minister’s MacDiarmid Emerging Scientist in 2009 for his nanotechnology research.”

Dr McKay, a 34-year-old glacial sedimentologist, is considered one of the world’s top young researchers in his field. His research focus is using marine sedimentary records and glacial deposits to reconstruct episodes of melting and cooling in Antarctica over the past 13 million years and show how they influenced global sea levels and climate.

The work is helping scientists understand how Antarctic ice sheets might respond to global warming, something Dr McKay says has particular relevance for New Zealand given its location at a major gateway where water from Antarctica enters the world’s oceans.

“New Zealand lies at the boundary between tropical and Antarctic ocean currents and, as such, our climate is directly controlled by Antarctic and Southern Ocean climatic systems. We need to better understand how past changes in these climate systems directly interacted with the better-known tropical controls on New Zealand’s climate, such as El Niño and La Niña,” he says.

To study this Antarctic link to New Zealand, he is also developing a five million year ocean-climate history from records collected from offshore eastern New Zealand.