iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Finally, next door is the Fukui Jomon Museum (Jomon was the first human culture in the Japanese archipelago). The two museums do a great job of playing on their synergy, e.g. the Jomon museum shows how C14 dates for its artefacts were refined by the Suigetsu-derived radiocarbon calibration.

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Sverduck was also pleased to see some ODV graphics showing how Suigetsu is a meromictic lake. Our undergrads will be analysing similar data next month in Bermuda...

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Sverduck came with as well. This has got to be the most scientifically in-depth museum I've visited. They went into real detail into C14 calibrations, millennial-scale climate variability, palaeoenvironment proxies, etc. Despite being so niche, it was pretty busy!

Display discussing millennial scale climate variability from the Greenland ice core (not sure whether this is showing hydrogen or oxygen isotopes).

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Noam Vogt-Vincent @nvogtvincent.co.uk · 19/07/2026

I went to the Fukui Varve Museum at Suigetsu-ko! The centrepiece is a full set of thin sections spanning the 45 m long Suigetsu varve record, which has played a key role in radiocarbon calibration (and therefore recent palaoclimate, archaeology, etc).

Entrance to the Lake Suigetsu Varve Museum.

Close up of the varve thin sections on display, showing annual banding.

View of the museum showing a long hall with thin sections.

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Sverduck has made it to Auckland and is ready for his (and my) first #ICRS26!

Sverduck (Oxford ocean-climate duck) sitting on a volcano with the Auckland skyline in the background.

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Noam Vogt-Vincent @nvogtvincent.co.uk · 01/07/2026

Moving house. It's important to prioritise. (rock = cross-bedded torridonian sandstone)

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Noam Vogt-Vincent @nvogtvincent.co.uk · 18/05/2026

Undergrad @oxuniearthsci.bsky.social field trip to Oxford's local coral reef (sadly 150 million years past its heyday)!

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Noam Vogt-Vincent @nvogtvincent.co.uk · 17/05/2026

I am an extremely unpatriotic person... until the journal starts correcting my British English to US spelling 😭

Screenshot from a journal proofing page, showing "palaeoclimate" changed to "paleoclimate" :(

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Noam Vogt-Vincent @nvogtvincent.co.uk · 27/02/2026

Very cool poster on plankton outreach through origami by @neilbanas.bsky.social and artist collaborators at #OSM26! Will give this a go when I get home.

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Noam Vogt-Vincent @nvogtvincent.co.uk · 27/11/2025

Climate change postdoctoral fellowship (JRF, 3Y) opportunity at Oxford! 🌍 Brilliant opportunity for anybody with <2 years postdoc experience by October 2026. Would be great to get coral people - there's a strong cluster of coral reef/climate change people here. 🪸 www.queens.ox.ac.uk/vacancies/ju...

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Noam Vogt-Vincent @nvogtvincent.co.uk · 19/11/2025

Somebody had a very bad day at CEDA today...

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Noam Vogt-Vincent @nvogtvincent.co.uk · 22/10/2025

We're advertising a PhD project to investigate the hydrodynamics of Aldabra Atoll @oxuniearthsci.bsky.social! We are looking for a student with strong quantitative skills and interest in ocean modelling. Competitive funding available through ILESLA. Please share with anybody who may be interested!

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Noam Vogt-Vincent @nvogtvincent.co.uk · 28/09/2025

@oxuniearthsci.bsky.social 2025 Bermuda trip is complete! We were super lucky to see a trichodesmium bloom in the Sargasso Sea and sampled an anoxic layer in Harrington Sound (usually fully mixed at this time). Bermuda is a perfect location to bridge modern and paleo ocean-climate processes!

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Noam Vogt-Vincent @nvogtvincent.co.uk · 26/09/2025

Geology day for the @oxuniearthsci.bsky.social Bermuda trip! Discussed evidence of eustatic sea level change through Bermudan aeolianites, beach rock, palaeosols and palmetto stumps, followed by a cave tour. Students did great despite challenging heat!

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Noam Vogt-Vincent @nvogtvincent.co.uk · 25/09/2025

Exciting Bermuda Day 3 for our @oxuniearthsci.bsky.social undergrads on board the RV Atlantic Explorer with expert guidance from @stannescollege.bsky.social + Earth Sciences alumna Eloise! Sampling and processing water from down to 3500 m depth in the subtropical Atlantic.

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Noam Vogt-Vincent @nvogtvincent.co.uk · 24/09/2025

Another great day doing coastal oceanography in Harrington Sound, successfully sampling an anoxic layer at the bottom of Devil's Hole! Tomorrow we'll be on the RV Atlantic Explorer, heading to Hydrostation S...

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Noam Vogt-Vincent @nvogtvincent.co.uk · 23/09/2025

Our @oxuniearthsci.bsky.social undergraduates on their Bermuda field class! Busy first day doing oceanographic data analysis, looking at fossil dunes from glacial periods, and a snorkel around a modern carbonate factory with some great diploria and gorgonia colonies.

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Noam Vogt-Vincent @nvogtvincent.co.uk · 18/09/2025

Also consider Session 98: eco-evolutionary responses of reef organisms to anthropogenic climate change with @ecolology.bsky.social and @liamlachs.bsky.social! Super important for future coral reef dynamics, so I'm really looking forward to this session.

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Noam Vogt-Vincent @nvogtvincent.co.uk · 18/09/2025

#ICRS2026 is now open for abstract submissions! Coral modellers - consider submitting an abstract to our Session 19: modeling coral reef ecosystems across scales. We're hoping to get diverse abstracts spanning a broad range of spatial and temporal scales! 🪸🌊

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Noam Vogt-Vincent @nvogtvincent.co.uk · 17/09/2025

Interested in doing a PhD in environmental research at Oxford? We offer fully-funded positions through ILESLA, now open for applications at iles.web.ox.ac.uk! Happy to discuss applications with students whose interests align with modelling marine dispersal or oceanic forcing of coral reefs.

Lettuce coral, Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, Red Sea
Image credit: Renata Romeo / Ocean Image Bank (https://www.theoceanagency.org)

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Thank you also to my excellent co-authors, Lisa McManus, @chrisecornwall.bsky.social, and Jamie Pringle, and most of the reviewers for this paper! We're looking forward to expanding this study in future work. (16/16)

Coral reef, American Samoa

Credit: Shaun Wolfe / Ocean Image Bank

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This research was carried out at the Hawai’i Institute of Marine Biology, and was supported by the NOAA Climate & Global Change Program with @ucar-cpaess.bsky.social. This amazing postdoctoral program is currently under serious threat due to US federal funding cuts. (15/16)

Coral reef in Badouzi, Taiwan

Credit: Yen-Yi Lee / Ocean Image Bank

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In summary, temperate seas will not act as effective refugia for most tropical coral species. Coral reefs will expand polewards, but not within our lifetimes. On the other hand, corals are not doomed, and limiting warming to 2C could give them a much brighter future than previously thought. (14/16)

Coral reef, Yehliu, Taiwan

Credit: Yen-Yi Lee / Ocean Image Bank

We are currently seeing shifts in coral community composition towards more stress-tolerant corals. Our model also suggests that this will reverse later this century, favouring fast-growing branching corals in the long term. There is some potential evidence for this in the geological record. (13/16)

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Interestingly, our model suggests the bottleneck is *not* dispersal, but the relatively slow population growth rate of tropical corals in marginal conditions. While mean SST is rising, higher latitude locations still have greater temperature variability and less light, limiting growth rate. (12/16)

360 of Ishigaki, Okinawa, Japan

Credit: The Ocean Agency / XL Catlin Seaview Survey

On the other hand, we predict that significant poleward range expansion takes centuries for most tropical coral species. Given that these corals are already experiencing a catastrophic decline, this is far too slow for the subtropics/temperate seas to act as coral 'refugia'. (11/16)

Predicted change in coral cover over the 21st century, showing very minimal expansions of tropical corals in southern Australia and Florida.

Our model suggests that tropical coral cover will decline by a further 70% under future emissions in line with current policies, but this decline could be halved under SSP1-2.6 (broadly consistent with the Paris Climate Agreement). (9/16)

This model was parameterised primarily using physiological measurements from lab experiments. It is not a statistical model – it was given no information about where corals are found. Despite this, it does a decent job of independently predicting where reefs are, and their recent decline. (8/16)

Model assessment, showing modelled (left) versus observed (right) coral reef distribution.

Many interacting processes – dispersal, population dynamics, and evolution– come together to set the true rate of range expansion in response to rapid environmental change. To test whether we can expect corals to keep up with rapid climate change, we constructed a global eco-evo model. (7/16)

However, dispersal isn't the only requirement for range expansion. 'Habitability' is complex, and just because a coral is able to *survive* in a new location doesn't mean you are going to immediately form a large thriving coral reef capable of propagating larvae further poleward. (6/16)

Temperate (non-coral) reef in South Australia. Credit: Stefan Andrews / Ocean Image Bank

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As the ocean warms, conditions become less habitable for corals in the tropics, but some higher latitude seas might become more conducive to coral reef formation. Coral larvae can drift over large distances by ocean currents, so it is possible for coral reefs to shift polewards. (5/16)

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3. The rate of coral range expansion is probably limited by greater environmental stress (e.g. temperature variability) at higher latitudes, *not* by dispersal. 4. Ongoing shifts towards more stress-tolerant massive corals may strongly reverse and benefit branching corals later this century. (3/16)

Graph showing changes in community composition towards massive, stress-tolerant corals over the next few decades, followed by a strong rebound to fast-growing branching corals beyond ~2080.

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Key points: 1. Apart from those that already do well in marginal reefs, it will take 100s years for most corals to expand polewards. 2. Limiting warming to 2C may give coral reefs a brighter future than previously suggested, with positive impacts lasting well beyond the current century. (2/16)

Graph showing different trajectories for future coral cover under SSP1-2.6 (~30% decline), SSP2-4.5 (~70% decine), and SSP5-8.5 (~99% decline).

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Noam Vogt-Vincent @nvogtvincent.co.uk · 02/06/2025

Can tropical corals find refuge at higher latitudes under future warming? In our new paper in Science Advances, we argue that coral range expansion will be *far too slow* for most coral species to outpace climate change. 🪸🌊 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... A short 🧵 (1/16)

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Oxford has excellent funded programmes for graduate students such as ILESLA and Intelligent Earth. Please contact me if you'd be interested in applying for one of these DTPs for a project aligned with my research areas (likewise for postdocs, but this would need to be externally funded for now).

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Noam Vogt-Vincent @nvogtvincent.co.uk · 02/06/2025

I hope that the Connected Ocean Lab will be home to scientists from diverse fields including climate, oceanography, ecology, and geoscience. We will combine these interdisciplinary approaches with numerical modelling to understand how our connected ocean 🌊🪸 responds to climate change.

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Noam Vogt-Vincent @nvogtvincent.co.uk · 02/06/2025

I'm *very* excited to be joining the Department of Earth Sciences and St Hugh's College at the University of Oxford as Associate Professor of Climate Science! I will be setting up the Connected Ocean Lab, focusing on ocean-climate drivers of marine connectivity and past & future ecosystem dynamics.

Simulated surface temperatures in the SW Indian Ocean from Vogt-Vincent & Johnson (2023)

Eagle Ray Over Coral Reef

Credit: Single Fin Photo / Ocean Image Bank

Photograph of the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Oxford.

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Noam Vogt-Vincent @nvogtvincent.co.uk · 01/01/2025

Textbook example of a sill creating a waterfall!

Photo of a mafic sill with vertical joining (around 50 cm thick) forming the upper ledge of a waterfall (around 5 m high). Middle of a mountain forest, O'ahu.

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Noam Vogt-Vincent @nvogtvincent.co.uk · 09/12/2024

We have jellyfish on top and around the tree lol

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Noam Vogt-Vincent @nvogtvincent.co.uk · 13/11/2024

Now that I've finally made the move, I'm reposting one of my favourite things I made during my PhD: 1 year of output from a regional simulation of the SW Indian Ocean (colours show SST). We often use neat schematic diagrams to represent ocean currents but in reality, it's a rather turbulent mess!

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Would like to end by promoting my preprint, which uses the lessons learned from this paper to assess coral reef connectivity across the southwest Indian Ocean, and to what extent this can explain regional coral biogeography and population structure. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

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In short, potential connectivity variability is really important, particularly if you're trying to relate your findings to a real world system. There are important limits to what we *can* know using dispersal simulations, regardless of how 'good' our simulation is. [16/16]

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In general, remote reefs surrounded by fast currents have the most unpredictable, rapidly changing connectivity. [15/16]

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A last nice finding is that the 'randomness' of larval dispersal from a reef can often be predicted without running complex dispersal simulations, based on basic physical oceanographic and geographic parameters such as current speed and nearby reef cover. [14/16]

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