Collaborative Research: Testing Next Generation Measurement Techniques for Reconstruction of Paleoclimate Archives from Thin or Disturbed Ice Cores Sections

Interpreting highly compressed portions of ice cores is increasingly important as projects target climate records in basal ice, and old ice recovered from blue-ice areas. This project will integrate precisely co-registered electrical conductivity measurements, hyperspectral imaging, laser ablation mass spectrometer measurements of impurities, and ice physical properties to investigate sub-centimeter chemical and physical variations in polar ice.

Critical to resolving thin ice layers is understanding the across-core variations that may obscure or distort the vertical layering. Analyses will be focused on samples from the WDC-06A (WAIS Divide), SPC-14 (South Pole), and GISP2 (Greenland Ice Sheet Project 2) ice cores that have well-established seasonal cycles that yielded benchmark timescales, as well a large-diameter ice core from the Allan Hills blue ice area. This work will develop state-of-the-art instrumentation and FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable) data handling workflow at the National Science Foundation Ice Core Facility available to the community both to enhance understanding of existing ice cores, and for use in future projects.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.