Giuseppe Cortese

Giuseppe is an acknowledged world expert in the application of siliceous microfossils (radiolarians and diatoms) to paleo-environmental research questions. He uses the fossil remains of these plankton organisms to reconstruct past climate, oceanic conditions, and to date sediments, particularly in the Southern Ocean and southwest Pacific.

Giuseppe joined GNS Science in 2008 and has extensive expertise in the development of past sea surface temperature estimates and understanding the response of ocean water masses to climate change, particularly under warmer-than-present conditions. He has pioneered the use of advanced statistical and morphometric methods to analyse siliceous microfossils. This has resulted in more accurate estimates of past sea surface temperature and oceanographic conditions for many regions of the World Ocean, thus enabling the broader scientific community to generate more precise, quantitative environmental data that can be directly compared to climate model results.

Since March 2022, Giuseppe leads the Kaitiakitanga ki Te Riu-a-Māui research Programme, a very diverse research programme covering a wide array of geoscientific disciplines, including geothermal, critical minerals, subduction margin, earthquake, geodesy, landslide, tsunami research topics. This programme explores and provides geoscientific knowledge on the recently discovered Earth’s 8th continent, Zealandia.

Giuseppe is recognised as a supportive colleague and committed supervisor to students and early career researchers (4 MSc, 7 PhD and 2 Post Docs co-supervised and mentored throughout his career). Over last couple of years, he has co-supervised several PhD projects, through collaborations with the Australian National University, University of Queensland (Australia), Kochi University (Japan), and University of Bordeaux (France).

He currently is a Science Team member of the SWAIS2C(external link) (Sensitivity of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet to 2 degrees Celsius of warming) Programme, co-led by Richard Levy (GNS), Molly Patterson (Binghamton University, USA) and Denise Kulhanek (GEOMAR). Around 35 international research organisations and 100 scientists(external link) are collaborating on the project. The aim is to drill sediment cores under the ice shelf in the Ross Sea to recover and interpret records of behaviour of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet during warmer than present intervals.

Giuseppe Cortese Paleoclimate Scientist

I was born in Reggio Calabria, a Greek colony founded in 740 BC at the very tip of Italy’s boot, just opposite Sicily: only 3 km away, quite practical if you can walk on water. After a lot of close brushes with Mesozoic rocks during my University years, I specialized in modern radiolarians, the plankton group that controlled the silica cycle in the ocean for a long time, until diatoms stole their show… I’ve worked on fjords, the Nordic Seas and their oceanography, morphometry of microfossils, temperature and sea ice reconstructions, silica cycle, polar paleoclimate, iron fertilization and all things Southern Ocean. I moved to New Zealand in January 2008, where I keep on studying the Southern Ocean, the SW Pacific and the Tasman Sea, particularly their recent past climate history. As fitting for my Greek heritage and geological background, I married my own rock (Meera) on a caldera rim, in Santorini. I have way too many hobbies to cleanse my brain, including playing tenor saxophone and keyboards, riding motorbikes, cooking, fishing/boating, travelling and experiencing the world, learning languages, and gaming.

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Giuseppe Cortese

Giuseppe Cortese Paleoclimate Scientist