Cambridge QuaternaryJean Grove
1927-2001
Jean Grove's research interests were strongly focused around glaciers and climate change and she is perhaps best known for her work on climate change during the last few thousand years, which culminated in the publication of The Little Ice Age in 1988. This represented years of painstaking research reconstructing the history of glacial fluctuations around the world over the course of the last millenium. She was, perhaps, ahead of her time in questioning the existence of globally synchronous climate changes and was certainly working in the field of climate history long before it became the popular subject that it is today. Her research brought together evidence from a wide variety of sources, including those from dendroclimatology, ice cores and speleothems. But as well as these natural‚ proxy records, she was amongst the first researchers to recognise the wealth of evidence available in archival material worldwide, such as Norwegian tax records to examine the impact of glacial advances on farmers in marginal upland areas. The results of her research showed that natural climate fluctuations during the last millennium had been much greater than previously believed. The Little Ice Age was a very well received volume, and at the time of her death she was completing work on the second edition, incorporating the new research on the subject which has appeared during the past decade, much of which was fostered by her own enthusiasm for the subject. Following completion by Jean's husband, the geographer A.T. (Dick) Grove, this volume is due to appear under the revised title of Little Ice Ages in 2004 (Routledge).
Jean Grove's interests in glaciers and climate change were developed as an undergraduate reading geography at Newnham College, Cambridge in the 1940s. She had, however, already developed a passion for mountains from her parents who were keen mountaineers. Her interests in climate change were encouraged by the climate historian, Gordon Manley, and the historical geographer, Jean Mitchell. At the same time, her passion for fieldwork was fostered by Prof. Frank Debenham and the glaciologist, Vaughan Lewis. As an undergraduate, she was part of a fieldwork team working in the Jotunheimen mountain range in Norway seeking to explain the internal structures of ice, especially at the glacier-bedrock interface.
In more recent years, and continuing after her retirement, Jean was involved in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In addition, her interests in climate history were increasingly focused on Mediterranean regions, as she collaborated with Dick Grove on his EU-funded projects on Mediterranean desertification. This allowed her to explore new parts of the world. She always had a passion for travel.
In 1960, Jean was elected to a Fellowship at Girton College Cambridge, where she became Director of Studies in geography until her retirement in 1994. Until 1979, Girton was a women's college. Thus in her position she influenced the careers of many of her students and gave strong encouragement to women geographers. She was an inspirational teacher and took her duties very seriously. She was often firm in her recommendation that students participate in fieldwork and expeditions during their summer vacations. Many of her former students went on to their own academic and research lives, often in the field of physical geography. Many others went on to teach geography in schools, so fostering future generations of students.
This overview of Jean Grove's career owes much to an obituary in The Independent (12.03.01) by Professor Andrew Goudie and an appreciation of her life from the Girton College Annual Review, written by Dr Roland Randall.
H.D.Allen
8.9.03