Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research
Phone number
+31 (0)222 36 9565
Location
Texel
Function
Senior Research Leader
Expertise
  • Development and application of new organic proxies

Prof. Dr. Stefan Schouten

Senior Research Leader

Organic proxy research

I analyse chemical compounds that can inform about the climate in earlier times, so-called “proxies”: compounds that indirectly tell us something about past temperature or chemical composition of the atmosphere or the oceans. I try to develop new proxies and their shortcomings, to better constrain their application in reconstructing past climate.

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Linked news

Tuesday 18 March 2025
A promising approach to advance proxy-based pCO2 reconstructions.
Carbon continuously moves between the atmosphere, oceans, land, and Earth's crust through natural processes such as erosion and plant growth. These shifts influence atmospheric CO₂ levels over time, making it crucial to study past changes in marine…
Wednesday 26 February 2025
Investigating paleotemperature proxies based on archaeal hydroxylated tetraether lipids
Understanding past sea surface temperatures (SSTs) is crucial for reconstructing Earth's climate history. Devika Varma has focused her PhD research project on specific biomolecules produced by archaea, called OH-isoGDGTs,as SST proxies. By evaluating…
Friday 21 June 2024
CO2 puts heavier stamp on temperature than thought
A doubling of the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere could cause an increase in the average temperature on earth from 7 to even a maximum of 14 degrees. That is shown in the analysis of sediments from the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California, by…
Friday 24 May 2024
30 million for research into acceleration of climate change
Climate change can be accelerated by feedback mechanisms: complex phenomena caused by climate change that in turn can further drive climate change. One example is the additional CO2 emissions from thawing permafrost. Research into the influence of…
Friday 17 May 2024
NWO Open Competition Domain Science – M awards for 3 NIOZ scientists
The NWO Domain Board Science has approved the grant applications of NIOZ scientists Femke the Jong, Stefan Schouten and Peter Kraal in the Open Competition Domain Science-M program. M-grants are intended for innovative, high-quality, fundamental…
Friday 29 July 2022
How coastal seas help the ocean in absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere
The biologically productive North Sea impacts the global climate through exchange of carbon and nutrients with the Atlantic Ocean. A Dutch consortium of scientists will investigate how big this role of the North Sea really is. Under the leadership of…
Wednesday 08 December 2021
Baleens read like a whale's history book
By chemically analyzing sequential samples from the baleen of dead whales, it is possible to read not only the history of the diet, but also the migration route of the animals. In the latest issue of the journal Royal Society Open Science, NIOZ…
Monday 23 August 2021
PhD researcher provides ways to determine methane emissions on land
Nadine Smit, researcher at the Royal NIOZ Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, has discovered new chemical tracers to investigate the presence of terrestrial bacteria that consume the powerful greenhouse gas methane. The knowledge about methane…
Wednesday 26 August 2020
Understanding potential errors and downfalls of a novel climate proxy
Accurate reconstructions of past climate changes are essential to understand the changes the world faces today and make predictions for the future. In her PhD research, NIOZ scientists Sophie Reiche focused on the novel proxies of long-chain alkyl…
Thursday 09 January 2020
Reconstructing past atmospheric CO2 levels to better understand climate change
Carbon dioxide plays a critical role in global climate and is of growing concern with the continuous rise of CO2. Past Earth is used to better understand the precise relationship between CO2 and climate (aka climate sensitivity), but reconstructing…

Linked blogs

Tuesday 07 April 2020
New dusty paper out: Saharan dust versus Amazon River water
In their new paper that appeared today in the open-access version of Limnology & Oceanography, entitled “Multiple drivers of production and particle export in the western tropical North Atlantic”, Laura Korte and colleagues present a comprehensive…
Monday 12 March 2018
Fire biomarker in Saharan dust traced across the Atlantic Ocean
In their new paper that was published in Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta today, Laura Schreuder and colleagues apply a new proxy for burnt vegetation; the anhydrosugar levoglucosan, and demonstrate how this sugar can be found in present-day Saharan…
Sunday 26 November 2017
Biomarkers in Saharan dust
A new paper by Laura Schreuder and colleagues presents new data on terrestrial higher-plant biomarkers found in aerosols and marine sediments sampled along the DUSTTRAFFIC transatlantic array of sediment traps as well as in seafloor sediments.

NIOZ publications

Linked projects

NoSE_North Sea Atlantic Exchange
Supervisor
Matthew Humphreys
Funder
Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research
Project duration
1 Oct 2022 - 31 Dec 2027
NESSC_A salinity proxy based on specific algal biomarkers δD values (WP1)
Supervisor
Stefan Schouten
Funder
Ministerie van OCW
Project duration
6 Nov 2015 - 28 Feb 2021
NESSC-WP2_High-resolution organic geochemical proxy records of critical time intervals I
Supervisor
Stefan Schouten
Funder
Ministerie van OCW
Project duration
11 Jul 2015 - 5 Mar 2022
NESSC_Towards reconstructing past atmospheric methane concentrations using organic biomarkers (WP1)
Supervisor
Stefan Schouten
Funder
Ministerie van OCW
Project duration
10 Jul 2015 - 5 Nov 2025
NESSC_High-resolution organic geochemical proxy records of critical time intervals III (WP2)
Supervisor
Stefan Schouten
Funder
Ministerie van OCW
Project duration
6 Dec 2015 - 10 Jul 2025
Tracing ancient biomass burning using molecular biomarkers in marine and lake sediments
Supervisor
Stefan Schouten
Funder
Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research
Project duration
6 Nov 2015 - 10 Jun 2020
NESSC_High Resolution Organic Geochemical Records (WP2)
Supervisor
Stefan Schouten
Funder
Ministerie van OCW
Project duration
31 Dec 2013 - 11 Jul 2025
NESSC_Developing biomarker proxies for aerobic and anaerobic methane oxidation (WP1)
Supervisor
Stefan Schouten
Funder
Ministerie van OCW
Project duration
31 Dec 2013 - 11 Jul 2025
ERC Long chain diols as novel organic proxies for paleoclimate reconstructions
Supervisor
Stefan Schouten
Funder
European Community || European Research Council
Project duration
2 Jan 2014 - 1 Apr 2021
Microbial lipids: Exploring the natural variability of an unique set of cell constituents
Supervisor
Stefan Schouten
Funder
Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research
Project duration
1 Jan 2017 - 31 Jan 2020
Reconstructing sea surface temperatures in deep time
Supervisor
Stefan Schouten
Funder
Ministerie van OCW
Project duration
1 Jan 2019 - 31 Dec 2023