Previous Field Work
Spring/Summer 2010 | Antarctica 2009-2010
Greenland: Greenland Ice Sheet Snow Accumulation Variability
Summary: The goal of this project is to investigate snow accumulation in the south-eastern sector of the Greenland ice sheet. Snow accumulation rates on the Greenland ice sheet have been significantly underestimated and the missing mass prevents accurate estimates of the overall ice sheet mass balance. The south-eastern sector of the ice sheet contains the largest proportion of the missing mass. Consequently, this study will measure snow accumulation using new and existing firn cores along two transects in the south-east Greenland data void and, by combining the firn core records with ground-penetrating radar surveys, develop continuous accumulation transects between 2500 m and 500 m elevation.
Point(s) of Contact: Rick Forster, University of Utah
Schedule: 4/04/10 - 5/01/10
Greenland: Shallow Coring at Humboldt and Tunu Sites in Greenland
Summary: Several 30-meter ice cores will be drilled at the Humboldt and Tunu coring sites in Greenland to update the records obtained from cores taken at these locations in the mid-1990s.
Point(s) of Contact: Joseph McConnell, Desert Research Institute
Schedule: 4/23/10 - 5/08/10
Greenland: Understanding the Physical Properties of Northern Greenland Near-Surface Snow
Summary: This award will support an investigation of the physical properties and state of snow and firn along a traverse from Thule to Summit Greenland. The scientists will accompany the resupply traverse from Thule to Summit, and make detailed observations of grain size, density and stratigraphy in 1 m deep snow pits and 10 m deep boreholes in firn along a route that crosses all the facies (ablation facies, soaked facies, percolation facies, dry snow facies) of the ice sheet. Techniques to be applied in the field include near infra-red photography, borehole optical stratigraphy and a neutron-scattering probe. A ground-penetrating radar operated along the traverse will provide stratigraphic data that links the stratigraphic information obtained in the snow pits and boreholes. Two shallow ice cores obtained at the beginning and end of the traverse, and snow samples, will be returned to the laboratory for examination of microstructure using micro-computed tomography and brightness temperature using optical and near-infra-red photography.
Point(s) of Contact: Bob Hawley, Dartmouth College
Schedule: 6/06/10 - 6/19/10
Greenland: Summit Firn Air Cooling Feasibility Study
Summary: This project will study the feasibility of cooling air using the firn at Summit Camp in Greenland.
Point(s) of Contact: Dave Denny, CH2M Hill Polar Services
Schedule: 6/19/10 - 6/24/10
Antarctica: Exploring a 2 Million + Year Ice Climate Archive-Allan Hills Blue Ice Area (2MBIA)
Summary: 2MBIA is a United States blue ice coring and trenching project in East Antarctica sponsored by the National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs. The purpose of the 2MBIA project is to demonstrate that relatively inexpensive trenching for collection of samples of ice as old as 2.5-2.8 million years (Ma) is possible at the site located one hour by airplane from U.S. McMurdo Station. The major objectives of the project are to generate an absolute timescale for the Allan Hills Blue Ice Area (BIA), and then to reconstruct details of past climate changes and greenhouse gas concentrations for certain time periods back to 2.5 Ma.
Point(s) of Contact: Andrei Kurbatov, University of Maine
Schedule: 10/25/09 - 12/6/10
Project Web Page: http://cci.um.maine.edu/2MBIA/
Antarctica: West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) Divide Ice Core
Summary: West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) Divide is a United States deep ice coring project in West Antarctica funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). The purpose of the WAIS Divide project is to collect a deep ice core covering approximately one glacial cycle from the ice divide in central West Antarctica. The WAIS Divide ice core will provide Antarctic records of environmental change for the last ~100,000 years with high time resolution and will be the first Southern Hemisphere climate record of comparable time resolution and duration to the Greenland GISP2, GRIP, North GRIP, and NEEM ice cores.
Point(s) of Contact: Kendrick Taylor, Desert Research Institute
Schedule: 11/08/09 - 1/30/10
Project Web Page: West Antarctic Ice Sheet Divide Ice Core Project
Antarctica: Constraining the Mass-Balance Deficit of the Amundsen Coast's Glaciers
Summary: The West Antarctic Ice Sheet is losing mass, in large part because of rapid thinning of the Amundsen Coast glaciers. While warmer ocean temperatures may drive this thinning, the large uncertainties in the current mass balance estimates largely arise from poor knowledge of the snowfall accumulation over Pine Island, Thwaites, Smith, Pope and Kohler glaciers. The objective of this International Polar Year project is to determine accumulation rates in this vastly under-sampled region to remove the large uncertainties in current mass balance estimates. The first year (2009/10) field effort will collect a series of airborne accumulation radar profiles to map internal layers and ice thickness. Near-surface radar layers will be dated using age-depth profiles derived from shallow ice cores that will be drilled during the second season (2010/11).
Point(s) of Contact: Ian Joughin, University of Washington
Schedule: Dec 2009 - Jan 2010
Antarctica: A "Horizontal Ice Core" for Large-Volume Samples of the Past Atmosphere
Summary: This project will develop a precise gas-based chronology for an archive of large-volume samples of the ancient atmosphere, which will enable ultra-trace gas measurements that are currently precluded by sample size limitations of ice cores. The project will provide a critical test of the "clathrate hypothesis" that methane clathrates contributed to the two abrupt atmospheric methane concentration increases during the last deglaciation 15,000 and 11,000 years ago. The project will use large volumes of ice to measure carbon-14 on past atmospheric methane across the abrupt events.
Point(s) of Contact: Jeff Severinghaus, Scripps Inst of Oceanography (UCSD)
Schedule: Dec 2009 - Jan 2010
Antarctica: Ancient Buried Ice in Antarctica
Summary: A small team of earth scientists and engineers are using a specialized drill to reach buried ice deposits in Beacon Valley - a part of the Dry Valleys region of Antarctica. Buried ice deposits represent a new and potentially far-reaching archive of Earth's atmosphere and climate. If the drill operations are successful, the team will retrieve ice cores, which will enable the research team to gain access to a record of atmospheric and climatic change extending back for many millions of years. The ice being drilled is estimated to be several million years in age, making it by far the oldest ice yet known on this planet.
Point(s) of Contact: Michael Bender, Princeton University; Dave Marchant, Boston University
Schedule: 10/25/09 - 12/06/09
Project Web Page: http://people.bu.edu/marchant/themesBuriedIce2.htm
http://www.polartrec.com/ancient-buried-ice-in-antarctica
Antarctica: Amundsen Basin Seismic Project
Summary: This project studies ice sheet history and dynamics on the Thwaites Glacier and Pine Island Glacier in the Amundsen Sea sector of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. The project utilizes a combination of GPS, ice coring, radar, and seismic sensing to document conditions at the base of the ice sheet. Results from the project will contribute to an improved understanding of the impact of changes in polar ice sheets on sea level and climate.
Point(s) of Contact: Sridhar Anandakrishnan, Pennsylvania State University
Schedule: 11/01/09 - 01/02/10
Project Web Page: https://www.cresis.ku.edu/research/Antarctica_2007-08.html
http://www.polartrec.com/antarctic-ice-sheet-studies
