Completed Fieldwork

Climate change poses a significant threat to the water security of Alaska Native communities. Many piped water supply systems in rural Alaskan communities were built on permafrost soils, assuming the ground would remain frozen year-round. Now, rising temperatures are causing arctic permafrost to thaw, which in turn is causing underground water supply pipes to burst and leak. This project will use a SIPRE Hand Auger to collect permafrost cores from Nome, Alaska. The project team will work closely with Alaska Native communities to co-develop new climate-resilient water infrastructure through knowledge co-production, deploying novel real-time water supply monitoring systems, and characterizing Arctic soil conditions and their effects on pipeline structural integrity. The permafrost cores will be used in lab tests to determine index properties, ice content, and other characteristics of permafrost soils. Understanding these soil properties is important for designing robust water supply systems that can withstand thawing permafrost, prevent pipe leaks or breaks, and ensure a reliable water supply amidst the challenges posed by climate change.

The goal of this project is to gather new data to test the sensitivity of the northern Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) and its potential to contribute to sea level rise in the future. Specifically, data from the GreenDrill project will better constrain the response of the GrIS to past periods of warmth and address the hypothesis that the northern GrIS is more sensitive to Arctic warming than the southern GrIS. Using the Agile Sub-Ice Geological Drill and the Winkie Drill, the team will drill through the ice at sites in northern Greenland, sample bedrock obtained from those cores, and analyze a suite of cosmogenic nuclides (Beryllium-10, Aluminum-26, Chlorine-36, Carbon-14, and Neon-21) that can act as signatures of changes to the GrIS margin. These data will deliver direct observations of periods when the GrIS was substantially smaller than today and ice sheet margins retreated inland. Results will be incorporated into a numerical ice sheet model with a built-in cosmogenic nuclide module to identify plausible ice sheet histories. The modeling experiments will help understand the mechanisms and climate forcing underlying past periods of ice sheet retreat and help inform predictions of the future. Based on the melting scenarios, a first-order map of sea level rise fingerprints and inundation scenarios for major port cities will be produced.

This project will establish a network of instrumented sites to observe transformation of the Greenland Ice sheet’s percolation zone firn layer. Using the IDDO Hand Auger and Sidewinder, repeat cores will be collected over five years to track density and ice content changes, and instrumentation installed in core holes will monitor firn temperature evolution and compaction of the firn layer. The data from these efforts will be of high value to scientists focused on changes in storage capacity of the firn layer, process details of meltwater infiltration in cold firn, and the influence of firn compaction and melt on satellite-observed ice sheet elevation.

Weathering is an important process that releases nutrients that are essential for life from rocks and minerals in the Earth’s surface. This project seeks to understand the effect of large glaciers on weathering processes beneath the Greenland Ice Sheet and the consequences for life. During summer, nutrients and other products are flushed out of the Greenland Ice Sheet with water from melting ice. While these products have been sampled in spring and summer, it is not known how weathering processes are different during winter. In this project, researchers will sample the seasonal ice that forms in front of two of Greenland’s glacial outlets, Isunnguata Sermia and Leverett Glacier, during the freezing months to assess the chemistry and microbiology processes that reflect wintertime conditions beneath the ice sheet – periods when input of fresh meltwater is minimal. These samples will increase knowledge of winter conditions under the Greenland Ice Sheet and help better understand the interior portions of the ice sheet which are largely inaccessible. Such information will help in assessing past conditions, when colder atmospheric conditions resulted in minimal meltwater input through the ice sheet and to the glacial bed. These analyses will inform understanding of the role of glaciers on earth’s nutrient cycles presently, under past ice age conditions, and in a future deglaciating world.

This project will analyze molecular hydrogen (H2) in an ice core from Summit, Greenland, to reconstruct atmospheric changes in H2 over the past millennium. Using the 700 Drill, the project will drill a new ice core at Summit and extract air from the samples in the field, with subsequent analysis for H2, Ne, and CH4. This will be the first record of past atmospheric H2 prior to the onset of the industrial era. The results will reveal the natural variability in paleo-atmospheric H2 and how it relates to climate change. The resulting data will provide a baseline for assessing how human activities have influenced atmospheric H2 since the preindustrial era. The results of this study will inform global assessments of how the future hydrogen economy will affect atmospheric composition and climate.

Climate warming in the Arctic is thawing frozen soils, also known as permafrost. The thawing of permafrost is reshaping surface topography and increasing the release of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. The objective of this project is to determine the micro-scale mechanisms driving hot-spot and hot-moment carbon dynamics, for improving predictions of macro-scale carbon balance. As part of the project, the researchers seek to describe biogeochemical consequences across scales in response to abrupt permafrost degradation, with a focal area in the northern Alaska Arctic Coastal Plain. As part of the field validation of ice-wedge degradation stage mapping, the researchers will use the SIPRE Hand Auger to core the surface of ice-wedges (~1 meter) and make observations of the layering of the ice-cores to determine the age of the surface degradation.

Using the Foro 400 Drill, this project aims to recover a 100-150 m long ice core from an ice rise in the Amundsen Sea region of coastal West Antarctica. The ice core will be used to reconstruct annual climate and environmental variability over the past 200-400 years, constrain surface mass balance variability and trends over the (pre)instrumental period, and contribute greater temporal perspective to ongoing investigations of Thwaites Glacier – an extensive system that will contribute significantly to global sea level rise for centuries to come. This project collaborates with Korean Polar Research Institute (KOPRI) scientists and is supported via the KOPRI icebreaker RV ARAON. Martin Peninsula, between the Getz Ice Shelf and the Dotson Ice Shelf, has been chosen as the primary site based on existing airborne snow radar data and the high snow accumulation rate, which preserves high-resolution paleoclimate information. The specific drill site will be chosen based on scientific value and logistical constraints associated with the RV ARAON cruise.

This project contributes to the joint initiative launched by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the U.K. Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) to substantially improve decadal and longer-term projections of ice loss and sea-level rise originating from Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica. The objectives of the project are to learn whether basal conditions allow for rapid retreat of the Thwaites Glacier grounding line or whether retreat may re-stabilize near its current grounding line. These objectives will be achieved by using dedicated ice-flow modeling to guide targeted field surveys and experiments over two seasons, and to measure the most important unknown quantities and incorporate them into the models. Numerical models will be used to generate hypotheses for basal conditions that are testable through geophysical surveys and to project future behavior of Thwaites Glacier after assimilating the resulting data. The geophysical methods include seismic, radar, gravity, and electrical surveys that together will allow for a fuller characterization of the bed. The project will conduct field surveys in areas representative of different parts of the glacier, including across the margins, near the grounding line, and along the central axis of the glacier into its catchment. The Rapid Air Movement (RAM) Drill and Small Hot Water Drill will be used to create the shot holes required for the seismic measurements.

Cores drilled through the Antarctic ice sheet provide a remarkable window on the evolution of Earth’s climate and unique samples of the ancient atmosphere. The clear link between greenhouse gases and climate revealed by ice cores underpins much of the scientific understanding of climate change. Unfortunately, the existing data do not extend far enough back in time to reveal key features of climates warmer than today. COLDEX, the Center for Oldest Ice Exploration, will solve this problem by exploring Antarctica for sites to collect the oldest possible record of past climate recorded in the ice sheet.

This component of COLDEX will recover a suite of shallow (16 x < 200 m) ice cores from the Allan Hills and other Antarctic Blue Ice Areas (BIAs) that contribute towards our understanding of how Earth's climate system operated during warmer periods in the past and why the periodicity of glacial cycles lengthened from 40,000 to 100,000 years approximately 1 million years ago. These ice cores will be dated using a newly developed array of dating methods to establish a preliminary depth/age time scale. Subsections of the cores will be imaged and analyzed for stratigraphic orientation using ECM and a suite paleoclimate properties (e.g. CO2, CH4, O2/N2/Ar, water isotopes, etc.).

The ozone hole that develops over the Antarctic continent every spring is attributed to human activity, particularly the production of CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons in refrigerants) released into the atmosphere. Despite the 1987 Montreal Protocol ban on CFCs, the ozone hole's recovery has been slower than predicted. Bromocarbons, known to produce stratospheric ozone depletion, have recently been estimated to contribute to the pool of bromines in the lower atmosphere. This project will test if bromocarbons in sea ice are produced and degraded by microalgae and bacteria found in sea ice, snow, and the interface between the two. Using a Kovacs hand auger, the researchers will drill several cores (up to ~16) through ~1.5 meters of sea ice twice a week for six weeks. The cores will be used to collect chemical and biological measurements of sea ice and snow to determine bromocarbon concentrations, microbial activity associated with them, and intra-cellular genes and proteins involved in bromocarbon metabolism.

Weathering is an important process that releases nutrients that are essential for life from rocks and minerals in the Earth’s surface. This project seeks to understand the effect of large glaciers on weathering processes beneath the Greenland Ice Sheet and the consequences for life. During summer, nutrients and other products are flushed out of the Greenland Ice Sheet with water from melting ice. While these products have been sampled in spring and summer, it is not known how weathering processes are different during winter. In this project, researchers will sample the seasonal ice that forms in front of two of Greenland’s glacial outlets, Isunnguata Sermia and Leverett Glacier, during the freezing months to assess the chemistry and microbiology processes that reflect wintertime conditions beneath the ice sheet – periods when input of fresh meltwater is minimal. These samples will increase knowledge of winter conditions under the Greenland Ice Sheet and help better understand the interior portions of the ice sheet, which are largely inaccessible. Such information will help assess past conditions when colder atmospheric conditions resulted in minimal meltwater input through the ice sheet and to the glacial bed. These analyses will inform understanding of the role of glaciers on earth’s nutrient cycles presently, under past ice age conditions, and in a future deglaciating world.

This project aims to understand carbon cycling by microorganisms in near-surface glacial ice. Using a Kovacs hand auger, several shallow ice cores 1-2 meters depth will be drilled and analyzed for their microbiology. The researchers aim to understand glacial carbon cycling and estimate the export of organic nutrients to subglacial and proglacial systems. This research is a component of a larger effort to investigate how ecosystems develop, sediments react, and stream water compositions change as glacial retreat exposes landscapes.

Climate warming in the Arctic is thawing frozen soils, also known as permafrost. The thawing of permafrost is reshaping surface topography and increasing the release of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. The objective of this project is to determine the micro-scale mechanisms driving hot-spot and hot-moment carbon dynamics, for improving predictions of macro-scale carbon balance. As part of the project, the researchers seek to describe biogeochemical consequences across scales in response to abrupt permafrost degradation, with a focal area in the northern Alaska Arctic Coastal Plain. As part of the field validation of ice-wedge degradation stage mapping, the researchers will use the SIPRE Hand Auger to core the surface of ice-wedges (~1 meter) and make observations of the layering of the ice-cores to determine the age of the surface degradation.

This project will use the Blue Ice Drill to recover a 150 meter-long, large-diameter ice core to measure methane (CH4) and carbon monoxide (CO) trapped in bubbles in the ice. The researchers will set up a fully operational ice core melter and analysis system in the field to better understand the processes that impact the CH4 and CO gas records from ice cores. High-depth-resolution records of CO, and to a lesser extent CH4, in Arctic ice cores show evidence of non-atmospheric anomalies that are poorly understood. One potential source of such anomalies is biological activity within the ice. Microbes can be active at temperatures well below freezing, and ice cores are subjected to relatively warm temperatures after the ice is extracted from glaciers and ice sheets while they are stored or transported prior to measurement. The project aims to assess the rate of in situ production of CO and methane CH4 in Arctic ice and relate in situ gas production to ice storage conditions, chemistry, and microbiology.

This project aims to recover an ice core at Combatant Col, BC, Canada to reconstruct hydroclimate variability over the last 500 years. Previous work at Combatant Col demonstrates the preservation of annual stratigraphy, water-isotope, and geochemical records reflecting important climate and environmental variables, including atmospheric circulation, snow accumulation, fire activity, and trans-Pacific dust transport. Existing North Pacific ice cores are located exclusively in Alaska and the Yukon. Combatant Col significantly expands the spatial coverage of ice core records while providing a unique hydroclimate record in southwestern British Columbia. This project will conduct detailed radar surveys and ice-flow modeling to better understand the glaciological setting and select the optimal drilling site. During the 2022 field season, radar work and shallow coring using the IDDO Hand Auger will be conducted. During the 2023 field season, a core to bedrock will be retrieved using the Electrothermal Drill. Analysis of the ice core will include water isotope ratios and visual stratigraphy. In combination with high-resolution radar imaging, the core from Combatant Col will be used to determine whether the observed firn-aquifer at this site (liquid water is stored perennially above the firn-ice transition) has been a persistent feature at the site or whether it has formed recently, and to determine its impact on glacier energy balance and dynamics. The core will be archived and made available for additional analyses by the ice core research community.

This project will use the IDDO Hand Auger and Sidewinder power drive to drill four 20-meter deep firn cores at Summit, Greenland. The firn cores will span the last 30 years of snow accumulation. They will be used to investigate the trends in methanesulfonic acid (MSA), biogenic sulfate, and total biogenic sulfur over this period when anthropogenic NOx emissions from North America and Europe began to decline (after the mid-1990s). In addition, the researchers will measure ion and MSA concentrations and sulfur isotopes of sulfate in the shallow ice cores. This will yield an additional 16 years of data compared to the current record from an ice core drilled in 2007, allowing the researcher to examine whether the increasing trend in MSA since 2000 C.E. continues as NOx emissions have declined.

This project will conduct geophysical site selection activities for the GreenDrill project. Using the Small Hot Water Drill, team members will drill shot holes to 20 meters depth for seismic sources. Approximately 30 shot holes will be drilled each season.

The goal of this project is to gather new data to test the sensitivity of the northern Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) and its potential to contribute to sea level rise in the future. Specifically, data from the GreenDrill project will better constrain the response of the GrIS to past periods of warmth and address the hypothesis that the northern GrIS is more sensitive to Arctic warming than the southern GrIS. Using the Agile Sub-Ice Geological Drill and the Winkie Drill, the team will drill through the ice at sites in northern Greenland, sample bedrock obtained from those cores, and analyze a suite of cosmogenic nuclides (Beryllium-10, Aluminum-26, Chlorine-36, Carbon-14, and Neon-21) that can act as signatures of changes to the GrIS margin. These data will deliver direct observations of periods when the GrIS was substantially smaller than today and ice sheet margins retreated inland. Results will be incorporated into a numerical ice sheet model with a built-in cosmogenic nuclide module to identify plausible ice sheet histories. The modeling experiments will help understand the mechanisms and climate forcing underlying past periods of ice sheet retreat and help inform predictions of the future. A first-order map of sea level rise fingerprints and inundation scenarios for major port cities will be produced based on the melting scenarios.

This project will establish a network of instrumented sites to observe transformation of the Greenland Ice sheet’s percolation zone firn layer. Using the IDDO Hand Auger and Sidewinder, repeat cores will be collected over five years to track density and ice content changes, and instrumentation installed in core holes will monitor firn temperature evolution and compaction of the firn layer. The data from these efforts will be of high value to scientists focused on changes in storage capacity of the firn layer, process details of meltwater infiltration in cold firn, and the influence of firn compaction and melt on satellite-observed ice sheet elevation.

This project contributes to the joint initiative launched by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the U.K. Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) to substantially improve decadal and longer-term projections of ice loss and sea-level rise originating from Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica. The project's objectives are to learn whether basal conditions allow for rapid retreat of the Thwaites Glacier grounding line or whether retreat may re-stabilize near its current grounding line. These objectives will be achieved by using dedicated ice-flow modeling to guide targeted field surveys and experiments over two seasons, and to measure the most important unknown quantities and incorporate them into the models. Numerical models will be used to generate hypotheses for basal conditions that are testable through geophysical surveys and to project future behavior of Thwaites Glacier after assimilating the resulting data. The geophysical methods include seismic, radar, gravity, and electrical surveys that allow for a fuller bed characterization. The project will conduct field surveys in areas representative of different parts of the glacier, including across the margins, near the grounding line, and along the central axis of the glacier into its catchment. The Rapid Air Movement (RAM) Drill and Small Hot Water Drill will be used to create the shot holes required for the seismic measurements.

This project contributes to the joint initiative launched by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the U.K. Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) to substantially improve decadal and longer-term projections of ice loss and sea-level rise originating from Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica. This project will provide a record of regional sea-level change by establishing chronologies for raised marine beaches as well as the timing and duration of periods of retreat of Thwaites Glacier during the past 10,000 years by sampling and dating bedrock presently covered by Thwaites Glacier via subglacial drilling. Together with climatic and oceanographic conditions from other records, these will provide boundary conditions for past-to-present model simulations as well as those used to predict future glacier changes under a range of climate scenarios. The project will utilize the Badger-Eclipse Drill and Winkie Drill to obtain subglacial bedrock from sites where ice thickness is dynamically linked to grounding-line position in the Thwaites system (specifically in the Hudson Mountains and near Mount Murphy). Observation of significant cosmogenic-nuclide concentrations--the team will primarily measure Beryllium-10 and in situ Carbon-14--in these samples would provide direct, unambiguous evidence for past episodes of thinning linked to grounding-line retreat as well as constraints on their timing and duration.

Bubbles of ancient air trapped in ice cores have been used to directly reconstruct atmospheric composition, and its links to Antarctic and global climate, over the last 800,000 years. Previous field expeditions to the Allan Hills Blue Ice Area, Antarctica, have recovered ice cores that extend as far back as 2.7 million years, by far the oldest polar ice samples yet recovered. These ice cores extend direct observations of atmospheric carbon dioxide and methane concentrations and indirect records of Antarctic climate into a period of Earth's climate history that represents a plausible geologic analog to future anthropogenic climate change. Through this project, the team will return to the Allan Hills Blue Ice Area to recover additional ice cores that date to 2 million years or older. The Foro 400 and Blue Ice Drill will be used to recover the ice cores. The climate records developed from these ice cores will provide new insights into the atmosphere's chemical composition and Antarctic climate during times of comparable or even greater warmth than the present day. Project results will help answer questions about issues associated with anthropogenic change including the relationship between temperature change and the mass balance of Antarctic ice and the relationship between atmospheric greenhouse gases and global climate change.

Using the Foro 400 Drill, this project will drill a 400-450 meter long ice core from the Tunu region of northeast Greenland and analyze the core for a broad range of elements, chemical species, and isotopes to reconstruct climate and human impacts during the past ~4000 years. An ice-penetrating radar survey extending 40-km upstream along the ice-flow line upstream of the ice-core site will support interpretation of the aerosol and water isotope records, as well as understanding of any possible impacts from changes in deposition processes upstream. The goal of this research is to develop accurately dated, high-resolution, ice-core records of a broad range of elements and chemical species to expand and extend recently identified causal linkages between (1) ancient societies; (2) volcanism and hydroclimate; and (3) wars, plagues, social unrest, and economic activity.

This project will reconstruct Holocene climatic conditions to better understand human adaptation and response to past environmental variability. The assemblages of plant, animal, geologic, and archaeological material emerging from melting ice-patches in higher-elevation areas can provide a wealth of information about past environmental conditions and human use of alpine resources. The investigators will use an array of archaeological artifacts, ancient wood, and environmental and climatic proxies (e.g., oxygen isotopes, black carbon, continental dust, charcoal, and pollen) from ice cores collected from Northern Rocky Mountain ice-patches to better understand human use of alpine environments during periods of dramatic environmental change. The investigators will use the Chipmunk Drill to collect the ice cores.

Weathering is an important process that releases nutrients that are essential for life from rocks and minerals in the Earth’s surface. This project seeks to understand the effect of large glaciers on weathering processes beneath the Greenland Ice Sheet and the consequences for life. During summer, nutrients and other products are flushed out of the Greenland Ice Sheet with water from melting ice. While these products have been sampled in spring and summer, it is not known how weathering processes are different during winter. In this project, researchers will sample the seasonal ice that forms in front of two of Greenland’s glacial outlets, Isunnguata Sermia and Leverett Glacier, during the freezing months to assess the chemistry and microbiology processes that reflect wintertime conditions beneath the ice sheet – periods when input of fresh meltwater is minimal. These samples will increase knowledge of winter conditions under the Greenland Ice Sheet and help better understand the interior portions of the ice sheet which are largely inaccessible. Such information will help in assessing past conditions, when colder atmospheric conditions resulted in minimal meltwater input through the ice sheet and to the glacial bed. These analyses will inform understanding of the role of glaciers on earth’s nutrient cycles presently, under past ice age conditions, and in a future deglaciating world.

This research examines past and modern change in climate over Peru and Bolivia using snow and ice samples to improve predictions for future climate. Instrumental records of climate and environmental variability from the region are sparse. However, ice cores from Central Andean glaciers can provide a source of high-resolution records of past climate dynamics and chemistry of the atmosphere extending back in time for centuries to millennia. Climate reconstructions from ice cores can provide added temporal and spatial context to existing multi-proxy climate reconstructions to help assess the impact of natural and human-induced physical and chemical climate change at the storm-scales that impact day to day and season to season events, and in the process, develop analogs for predicting future change. The goal of this research is to combine advances in ice core sampling technology, knowledge of Andean storm event meteorology, cyberinfrastructure, and climate modeling and analysis to fresh snow, snowpits, and ice core data from Peru and Bolivia. Using the Thermal Drill, this project will recover approximately 140 meters of snow/firn/ice core from the summit region of Quelccaya during the project’s field season.

This project aims to recover an ice core at Combatant Col, BC, Canada to reconstruct hydroclimate variability over the last 500 years. Previous work at Combatant Col demonstrates preservation of annual stratigraphy, water-isotope and geochemical records reflecting important climate and environmental variables including atmospheric circulation, snow accumulation, fire activity, and trans-Pacific dust transport. Existing North Pacific ice cores are located exclusively in Alaska and the Yukon. Combatant Col significantly expands the spatial coverage of ice core records, while simultaneously providing a unique record of hydroclimate in southwestern British Columbia. This project will conduct detailed radar surveys and ice-flow modeling to better understand the glaciological setting and to select the optimal site for drilling. During the 2022 field season, radar work and shallowing coring using the IDDO Hand Auger will be conducted. During the 2023 field season, a core to bedrock will be retrieved using the Electrothermal Drill. Analysis of the ice core will include water isotope ratios and visual stratigraphy. In combination with high-resolution radar imaging, the core from Combatant Col will be used to determine whether the observed firn-aquifer at this site (liquid water is stored perennially above the firn-ice transition) has been a persistent feature at the site or whether it has formed recently, and to determine its impact on glacier energy balance and dynamics. The core will be archived and made available for additional analyses by the ice core research community.

This project will establish a network of instrumented sites to observe transformation of the Greenland Ice sheet’s percolation zone firn layer. Using the IDDO Hand Auger and Sidewinder, repeat cores will be collected over five years to track density and ice content changes, and instrumentation installed in core holes will monitor firn temperature evolution and compaction of the firn layer. The data from these efforts will be of high value to scientists focused on changes in storage capacity of the firn layer, process details of meltwater infiltration in cold firn, and the influence of firn compaction and melt on satellite-observed ice sheet elevation.

Using the IDDO Hand Auger and Sidewinder, this project will measure firn density at three sites up to 40 meters deep along the Thwaites grounding zone. The project’s purpose is robust validation of the ability of ICESat-2 to estimate ice mass change at Western Thwaites, a rapidly changing ice shelf. One of the key challenges with understanding ice mass change is in understanding firn density. The fieldwork is a component of the Melting at Thwaites grounding zone and its control on sea level (MELT) project to measure the overall ice mass balance of Thwaites Glacier.

This project will reconstruct Holocene climatic conditions to better understand human adaptation and response to past environmental variability. The investigators will use an array of archaeological materials and atmospheric proxies from Northern Rocky Mountain ice cores to better understand human use of alpine environments during periods of dramatic environmental change. The purpose of the fieldwork is to test how well the IDP Chipmunk Drill collects cores from ice patches in preparation for summer 2022 drilling.

This project will test the hypothesis that limited or variable shore ice cover, when compared to consistent shore ice cover, results in enhanced storm-induced coastal erosion and damage to coastal infrastructure. Cold climate coastlines are highly vulnerable to reduced winter ice cover in response to climate change. The dynamics of how reduced ice cover influences coastal evolution is poorly understood which inhibits accurate forecasting of future coastal response in cold climates. Researchers on this project hope to improve our understanding of how sediment interacts with shore ice as well as the resulting coastal landscape change. The first part of the project involves laboratory experiments aimed at studying the physics of sediment and ice interactions. The second part of the project will gather field measurements that use the laboratory measurements as a basis to investigate how cold climate coastlines naturally respond to the shore ice. Using a SIPRE Hand Auger, the researchers will collect ice core samples of 1-3 meters in length on Lake Michigan and Lake Superior to inspect debris entrained within the ice for comparison with the laboratory experiments. This research will result in a model that will help explain how reduced and variable winter shore ice cover alters the coastal landscape, which will help coastal managers proactively plan for future climate change impacts.

All IDP-supported fieldwork for the 2020-2021 Antarctic season was postponed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

This research advances the growing field of winter limnology by using long-term data collected on northern lakes in Wisconsin in conjunction with a snow-removal experiment to look at under-ice algae and the implications for ice-loss on spring algae blooms. Using an IDDO Hand Auger, the researchers will collect lake ice cores through an ice thickness of up to one meter to study the biogeochemistry and habitat of lake ice.

This project will test the hypothesis that limited or variable shore ice cover, when compared to consistent shore ice cover, results in enhanced storm-induced coastal erosion and damage to coastal infrastructure. Cold climate coastlines are highly vulnerable to reduced winter ice cover in response to climate change. The dynamics of how reduced ice cover influences coastal evolution is poorly understood which inhibits accurate forecasting of future coastal response in cold climates. Researchers on this project hope to improve our understanding of how sediment interacts with shore ice as well as the resulting coastal landscape change. The first part of the project involves laboratory experiments aimed at studying the physics of sediment and ice interactions. The second part of the project will gather field measurements that use the laboratory measurements as a basis to investigate how cold climate coastlines naturally respond to the shore ice. Using a SIPRE Hand Auger, the researchers will collect ice core samples of 1-3 meters in length on Lake Michigan and Lake Superior to inspect debris entrained within the ice for comparison with the laboratory experiments. This research will result in a model that will help explain how reduced and variable winter shore ice cover alters the coastal landscape, which will help coastal managers proactively plan for future climate change impacts.

The RAID drilling system will be put through a complete set of drilling trials, including augering firn, setting a borehole packer, drilling about 600 meters of grounded ice, and sampling of ice and rock at depth by wireline rotary coring. All components of the drilling system will be tested and evaluated. The 4-Inch Drill will be used to make 2-3 meters of smooth-walled borehole just below the firn-ice transition, at a depth of approximately 100 meters, to field test the setting of the borehole packer. The Intermediate Depth Logging Winch will be used to field test a borehole dust logger in the boreholes produced this season at Minna Bluff.

This project contributes to the joint initiative launched by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the U.K. Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) to substantially improve decadal and longer-term projections of ice loss and sea-level rise originating from Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica. This project will provide a record of regional sea-level change by establishing chronologies for raised marine beaches as well as the timing and duration of periods of retreat of Thwaites Glacier during the past 10,000 years by sampling and dating bedrock presently covered by Thwaites Glacier via subglacial drilling. Together with climatic and oceanographic conditions from other records, these will provide boundary conditions for past-to-present model simulations as well as those used to predict future glacier changes under a range of climate scenarios. The project will utilize the Stampfli 2-Inch Drill and Winkie Drill to obtain subglacial bedrock from sites where ice thickness is dynamically linked to grounding-line position in the Thwaites system (specifically in the Hudson Mountains, and near Mount Murphy). Observation of significant cosmogenic-nuclide concentrations--the team will primarily measure Beryllium-10 and in situ Carbon-14--in these samples would provide direct, unambiguous evidence for past episodes of thinning linked to grounding-line retreat as well as constraints on their timing and duration.

This project contributes to the joint initiative launched by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the U.K. Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) to substantially improve decadal and longer-term projections of ice loss and sea-level rise originating from Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica. Thwaites and neighboring glaciers in the Amundsen Sea Embayment are rapidly losing mass in response to recent climate warming and related changes in ocean circulation. The processes driving the loss appear to be warmer ocean circulation and changes in the width and flow speed of the glacier, but a better understanding of these changes is needed to refine predictions of how the glacier will evolve. One highly sensitive process is the transitional flow of glacier ice from land onto the ocean to become a floating ice shelf. This flow of ice from grounded to floating is affected by changes in air temperature and snowfall at the surface; the speed and thickness of ice feeding it from upstream; and the ocean temperature, salinity, bathymetry, and currents that the ice flows into. The project team will gather new measurements of each of these local environmental conditions so that it can better predict how future changes in air, ocean, or the ice will affect the loss of ice to the ocean in this region.

The project will use a 400-meter winch with tower and sheave from the 4-Inch Drill as an instrument installation winch to lower instruments into hot water-drilled boreholes to measure ocean water properties at locations where warm Circumpolar Deep Water reaches the Thwaites grounding line.

Bubbles of ancient air trapped in ice cores have been used to directly reconstruct atmospheric composition, and its links to Antarctic and global climate, over the last 800,000 years. Previous field expeditions to the Allan Hills Blue Ice Area, Antarctica, have recovered ice cores that extend as far back as 2.7 million years, by far the oldest polar ice samples yet recovered. These ice cores extend direct observations of atmospheric carbon dioxide and methane concentrations and indirect records of Antarctic climate into a period of Earth's climate history that represents a plausible geologic analogue to future anthropogenic climate change. Through this project, the team will return to the Allan Hills Blue Ice Area to recover additional ice cores that date to 2 million years or older. The 4-Inch Drill and Blue Ice Drill will be used to recover the ice cores. The climate records developed from these ice cores will provide new insights into the chemical composition of the atmosphere and Antarctic climate during times of comparable or even greater warmth than the present day. Project results will help answer questions about issues associated with anthropogenic change including the relationship between temperature change and the mass balance of Antarctic ice and the relationship between atmospheric greenhouse gases and global climate change.

This project advances the growing field of winter limnology by using long-term data collected on northern lakes in Wisconsin in conjunction with a snow-removal experiment to look at under-ice algae and the implications for ice-loss on spring algae blooms. Using an IDDO Hand Auger, the researchers will collect lake ice cores through an ice thickness of up to one meter to study the biogeochemistry and habitat of lake ice.

This project will utilize the Intermediate Depth Logging Winch to lower a series of optical+UV and radio sensor packages into the South Pole Ice Core (SPICEcore) borehole to the full depth of the hole (1751 m). The science goals include measurements of the radio absorption length of the ice from 100-1000MHz, radio birefringence in the ice, and ice index of refraction, all measured as a function of depth and ice temperature. The science team is interested in the optical scattering, absorption lengths, and luminescence as a function of depth and optical wavelength from the visible into the ultraviolet.

The goal of the project is to quantify the structure, thermal state, and heat fluxes through the full thickness of the firn column across a transect spanning western Greenland's percolation zone. The project will achieve these objectives by drilling a combination of shallow and deep cores/boreholes at a series of sites between Swiss Camp and Crawford Point. Deep (up to 100 meters) boreholes will be drilled using hot water methods via with a drill that is being developed by the investigators. These deep boreholes will be augmented with a number of shallow cores to quantify density and provide access for temperature logging of the shallow firn thickness. The shallow cores will be drilled with an IDDO Hand Auger and Sidewinder.

This project is a multicultural polar science outreach program for high school students from Greenland, Denmark, and the USA. The program brings US students together with Danish and Greenlandic students in Greenland, where the group will spend several weeks studying the causes and consequences of Arctic environmental change. As part of the program, a hand auger will be used to expose the students to firn science (observing stratigraphic, density, and temperature changes with depth) at EastGRIP.

This project will return to their 2013 ice core drill site and use the Stampfli Drill to collect a 30- to 50-meter long core. The researcher’s objective is to understand the recent and past changes in summer temperature, snow accumulation, atmospheric circulation, and pollution in the context of the last 2000 years of natural variability in the North Pacific. In 2013 the researchers collected twin 208-meter long ice cores to bedrock from the summit plateau of Mt. Hunter in Denali National Park. This season’s 30- to 50-meter long core will be used to update the climate record from 2013 to 2019 and help aid in the interpretation of the deeper ice.

The Electrothermal Drill, aka the “Thermal drill”, is a mechanical ice coring drill, based on the 4-Inch Drill but with the addition of an electrically heated ring that enables coring in temperate ice that is close to the pressure melting point. Several system upgrades are being implemented for the drill, including a new 300 m cable, new heat rings, a thermal limiting/over-temperature regulation device and a new magnetic tool to assist with removal of cores from the barrel. In July 2019, IDP will conduct a three-week field test of the system in Alaska in conjunction with other Juneau Icefield Research Program (JIRP) activities and established logistics. Following the field test, IDP will inspect and repair the Electrothermal Drill equipment and make any necessary modifications.

This project will collect several shallow firn cores from the southwestern sector of the Greenland Ice Sheet to investigate the stratigraphy, density, temperature and liquid water content of the firn cover and investigate spatial and temporal variations (the latter by comparing to previous cores from the literature in some of the sites). The aim of the project is to better understand how the surface meltwater generated in the summer makes its way from its location on the ice sheet to the ocean. Two competing but not mutually exclusive theories are 1) the meltwater percolates into the ice sheet pores and is stored for a relatively long time. 2) The initial infiltrating meltwater refreezes at shallow depth in the firn, forming a hard pan that prohibits further infiltration. The project will test these two hypotheses through a combination of fieldwork, remote sensing from satellites, and modeling.

The 2018-2019 field season for the Rapid Access Ice Drill (RAID) project will consist of maintenance and upgrades only, with no testing of ice drilling. Upon request by the PIs, IDP is deploying one engineer to serve as the team leader for the maintenance season.

This project will sample firn air and shallow ice to a depth of about 233 meters at the Law Dome high-accumulation coastal site in East Antarctica. The goal of the project is to obtain measurements of paleo-atmospheric carbon-14 of carbon monoxide back to the 1800s when reactive trace gas emissions from human activity were minimal. These measurements will help to constrain changes in the oxidizing capacity of the atmosphere during the industrial period. The Badger-Eclipse Drill will be used to create the borehole for the firn air sampling. The 4-Inch Drill and Blue Ice Drill will be used to collect the ice core samples.

This project will utilize the Intermediate Depth Logging Winch to lower a series of optical+UV and radio sensor packages into the South Pole Ice Core (SPICEcore) borehole to the full depth of the hole (1751 m). The science goals include measurements of the radio absorption length of the ice from 100-1000MHz, radio birefringence in the ice, and ice index of refraction, all measured as a function of depth and ice temperature. The science team is interested in the optical scattering, absorption lengths, and luminescence as a function of depth and optical wavelength from the visible into the ultraviolet.

The McMurdo Dry Valleys Long-Term Ecological Research (MCM-LTER) Program is an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary study of the aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems in an ice-free region of Antarctica. The MCM-LTER has studied Dry Valleys ecosystems since 1993 and observed their responses to climate variations over time. Landscape connectivity, such as streams connecting glaciers to lakes, and lake level rise connecting upland soils, is recognized to be influenced by climate and geological drivers. This physical connectivity facilitates biotic linkages and enables gene flow among the endemic microbial communities. Researchers hypothesize that increased ecological connectivity within the Dry Valleys will amplify exchange of biota, energy, and matter, homogenizing ecosystem structure and functioning. During the MCM-LTER program, researchers will examine (a) how climate variation alters connectivity among landscape units, and (b) how biota (species, populations, and communities) are connected across this heterogeneous landscape, using state-of-the-art science tools and methods, including ongoing and expanded automated sensor networks, analysis of seasonal satellite imagery, biogeochemical analyses, and next-generation sequencing. Researchers will use the Sediment Laden Lake Ice Drill to make holes in the permanent lake ice of the McMurdo Dry Valleys for access to deployed equipment and melting out cables in the ice.

This project will investigate areas in the Antarctic Peninsula where water from summer melting of snow drains down into the deeper snow (firn) and remains as a water-flooded snow layer throughout the Antarctic winter. These zones are called firn aquifers. The project aims to confirm indications from satellite data that these areas exist on the Wilkins Ice Shelf and the George VI Ice Shelf coast. Persistent water in the upper layers of an ice shelf can destabilize the ice shelf and cause it to fracture and disintegrate or, on a non-floating ice sheet, can cause it to flow faster by draining to the bottom of the ice and reducing the friction between bedrock and glacier.

This year's fieldwork is centered on shallow ice-core drilling (using the IDDO Hand Auger) to about 60 meters depth at the southern Wilkins Ice Shelf and the southern George VI Ice Shelf. In addition to drilling one or two cores at each of the sites, researchers will conduct ground-penetrating-radar surveys of the area around the cores (about 60 line-km at each site) to determine the varying depth and extent of the aquifers. They will also install weather stations at each site (automated meteorology–ice–geophysics observing stations, AMIGOS) with a sensor array that will measure weather, snow temperature and accumulation, and melt-season duration and intensity. As part of the ice coring, the researchers will also measure snow density and temperature in recovered ice.

This project will collect several shallow firn cores from the southwestern sector of the Greenland Ice Sheet to investigate the stratigraphy, density, temperature and liquid water content of the firn cover and investigate spatial and temporal variations (the latter by comparing to previous cores from the literature in some of the sites). The aim of the project is to better understand how the surface meltwater generated in the summer makes its way from its location on the ice sheet to the ocean. Two competing but not mutually exclusive theories are 1) the meltwater percolates into the ice sheet pores and is stored for a relatively long time. 2) The initial infiltrating meltwater refreezes at shallow depth in the firn, forming a hard pan that prohibits further infiltration. The project will test these two hypotheses through a combination of fieldwork, remote sensing from satellites, and modeling.

The goal of the project is to quantify the structure, thermal state, and heat fluxes through the full thickness of the firn column across a transect spanning western Greenland's percolation zone. The project will achieve these objectives by drilling a combination of shallow and deep cores/boreholes at a series of sites between Swiss Camp and Crawford Point. Deep (up to 100 meters) boreholes will be drilled using hot water methods via with a drill that is being developed by the investigators. These deep boreholes will be augmented with a number of shallow cores to quantify density and provide access for temperature logging of the shallow firn thickness. The shallow cores will be drilled with an IDDO Hand Auger and Sidewinder.

This project will use a SIPRE Hand Auger with a gas engine to collect two 4-meter long permafrost cores from Ny- Ålesund, Svalbard. The goal of the project is to investigate whether microbes embedded in permafrost are extinct, representing ancient terrestrial surface or marine communities preserved through time, or actively living communities that have been evolving since being buried. To determine how long microbial communities can live in permafrost, this project will study permafrost collected from the oldest known sediments of the Northern Hemisphere, which occur in Siberia.

This project, funded by Columbia University, will conduct a pilot study in Juneau Ice Field, Alaska, to demonstrate the use of phase-sensitive ice-penetrating radar system (ApRES) for measuring firn densities and compaction rates. Within the accumulation area of Juneau Ice Field, the investigators will use an IDDO Hand Auger and Sidewinder to drill shallow firn cores to 40 meters depth and measure snow and firn density for comparison with the ApRES-derived densities. The goal of the project is to develop a new capability to rapidly measure the density and rate of densification of firn using ApRES.

The purpose of the field season is to collect firn cores covering the 2002-2018 time period from the Divide camp in the St. Elias Mountains, Yukon Territory, Canada. The investigators will use the Stampfli 2-Inch Drill to recover one 50 meter firn core and at least two 20 meter firn cores. The investigators have maintained automatic weather stations at the Divide camp since 2002, which represents an unprecedented observational record of snow accumulation and associated weather conditions in this glaciated region. By collecting a firn core to ~50 meters depth and analyzing stratigraphy (melt layers) and samples for stable water isotopes, the investigators will calibrate the ice core-based snow accumulation, temperature, and hydroclimate signals using the automatic weather station data. The investigators will also collect ground penetrating radar (GPR) data at the Divide camp to investigate glacier geometry and spatial snow accumulation patterns, and will ground truth the GPR data using the shallow (~20 meter depth) firn cores on a gridded basis.

The goals of this project are to evaluate archaeological artifacts, ancient wood, and environmental and climatic proxies (e.g., oxygen isotopes δ18O, black carbon, continental dust, charcoal, pollen) found frozen in ice cores within ice-patches to better understand past climatic conditions and human use of high elevations in the northern Rocky Mountains prior to the arrival of Europeans. The project will utilize the Prairie Dog Drill to recover three 6- to 7-meter long ice cores from the Beartooth ice patches in Montana.

This project will utilize the Deep Logging Winch to log the Rapid Access Ice Drill (RAID) Antarctic field trial (AFT) borehole drilled during the 2017-2018 summer field season near Minna Bluff, Antarctica. The RAID AFT includes a new slim version of PI Ryan Bay's optical logging device for use in the 3.5-inch diameter RAID boreholes. The optical logger will enable rapid establishment of the ice chronology in a borehole, in a few hours after drilling. This field trial will be critical in determining whether or not the RAID borehole wall roughness, and cleanliness, permits optical logging at the level of detail needed for accurate dating of the ice.

In the context of the already planned field work at Minna Bluff for testing the Rapid Access Ice Drill in December 2017, this project will drill a 100-meter firn core to measure density and to pump firn air at a limited number of depths. The main science goals are to 1) obtain an accurate accumulation rate and density profile to add to the calibration of firn densification models, and 2) to pump firn air samples for testing whether noble gas isotopes exhibit gravitational disequiibrium as seen in other high-accumulation sites such as Law Dome. An ancillary goal is to test for the presence of melt layers during La Nina episodes, which were seen last season in a 18-meter deep core drilled at the same site.

This project will utilize the Intermediate Depth Logging Winch to lower a series of optical+UV and radio sensor packages into the South Pole Ice Core (SPICEcore) borehole to the full depth of the hole (1751 m). The science goals include measurements of the radio absorption length of the ice from 100-1000MHz, radio birefringence in the ice, and ice index of refraction, all measured as a function of depth and ice temperature. The science team is interested in the optical scattering, absorption lengths, and luminescence as a function of depth and optical wavelength from the visible into the ultraviolet.

This project will study a large body of ice that is buried beneath approximately a meter of debris in the Ong Valley of the Transantarctic Mountains of East Antarctica. Preliminary analyses of this material suggest that it could be over a million years old. Most glacial ice contains tiny air bubbles that have trapped the atmospheric gases and other atmospherically transported materials existing at the time that the ice was deposited such as plant pollen, microbes, and mineral dust. Samples will be collected from this buried ice mass, down to a depth of 10 meters, and cosmogenic nuclide concentrations both in the overlying debris and in the till contained in the ice will be measured. The combined analysis of the target cosmogenic nuclides (Beryllium-10, Aluminum-26, and Neon-21) will allow the age of the ice to be uniquely determined and will enable determination of the rate that the ice is sublimating.

In 2017, the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS) undertook an expedition to Camp Century, Greenland, to initiate the Camp Century Climate Monitoring Programme, established by the Danish Government in agreement with the Government of Greenland. The 2017 fieldwork consisted of installing three automated instrument stations, drilling boreholes for instrument installation and firn sampling, surveying velocity stakes, and collecting ice-penetrating radar profiles. The Badger-Eclipse Drill was used to drill the instrumentation boreholes and to collect a firn core for density analysis.

Understanding the loss of ice from glaciers and ice sheets, and the resulting sea-level rise, is of critical importance. Both the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets, as well as mountain glaciers, discharge primarily through rivers of ice; understanding what controls the type of flow that occurs in these rivers of ice is therefore central to understanding and predicting sea-level rise. Among the least-understood factors that are thought to be important in affecting ice flow is internal strength of the ice near the sides of a flowing glacier. This viscous strength, in turn, may be affected by the micro-scale structure of the ice crystals in the glacier. The investigators will examine these relationships in detail on Jarvis Glacier, in the eastern Alaska Range, with the ultimate goal of being able to represent the effects of microstructure in numerical models of glacial flow. The purpose of this project is to correlate ice microstructure with velocity gradients in order to constrain microstructural control on/feedbacks with glacial mechanics to be able to make more informed glacial models. As part of the research, surface-to-bed ice cores will be collected across lateral and vertical flow gradients, and the microstructure (e.g., grain size distribution, crystallographic fabric) in the ice cores will be compared to in-situ and modeled velocities and temperatures.

This project will collect several shallow firn cores from the southwestern sector of the Greenland Ice Sheet to investigate the stratigraphy, density, temperature and liquid water content of the firn cover and investigate spatial and temporal variations (the latter by comparing to previous cores from the literature in some of the sites). The aim of the project is to better understand how the surface meltwater generated in the summer makes its way from its location on the ice sheet to the ocean. Two competing but not mutually exclusive theories are 1) the meltwater percolates into the ice sheet pores and is stored for a relatively long time. 2) The initial infiltrating meltwater refreezes at shallow depth in the firn, forming a hard pan that prohibits further infiltration. The project will test these two hypotheses through a combination of fieldwork, remote sensing from satellites, and modeling.

The Greenland ice sheet is rapidly melting due to extraordinary Arctic warming. All told, the ice sheet stores enough water to raise sea level by 6 meters. How fast the ice sheet will melt is still an open question. One important factor controlling the ice sheet melt is its physical properties. In this work, the investigators will extract an 80 meter core from the Summit Station, Greenland. Working in a cold room at Dartmouth the investigators will impose the natural temperature conditions on the two ends of the near surface part of the core and compression tests on the deeper part of the core. A suite of spectroscopy techniques will be used to monitor the 3-dimensional real-time densification of the core and the evolution of the crystal orientation. These experiments will provide the values of the numerous physical parameters required for simulation modeling, which will be used to determine the melt rates over the coming decades.

This project will use a hand auger and sidewinder to drill several shallow (30 meter depth) ice cores along a traverse in western Greenland. Continuous ground penetrating radar data will also be collected during the traverse. The research objectives include: (1) determining the patterns, in time and space, of snow accumulation in Western Greenland over the past 20-40 years; and (2) evaluating surface melt refreeze and englacial meltwater storage in the Western Greenland percolation zone over the past 20-40 years.

This project involves the seasonal (winter) acquisition of cores from ice-covered northern (U.S. midwest) temperate lakes and rivers to investigate the spatial and temporal distribution of planktonic ice nucleating activity in fresh water ecosystems.

This project will utilize the Intermediate Depth Drill's winch and cable to log the South Pole Ice Core borehole with an oriented laser dust logger. The data from the borehole probe will be used to investigate the depth-age relationship in the South Pole Ice Core, to identify ash layers, and to investigate ice flow and ice sheet physical properties.

This project will collect short bedrock cores beneath the ice sheet near the Pirrit Hills in West Antarctica. The cores collected in the study will be analyzed for cosmic-ray-produced isotopes of different elements. The presence or absence of these isotopes will provide a definitive test of whether bedrock surfaces were ice-free in the past and due to their different half-lives, ratios of the isotopes will place constraints on the age, frequency and duration of past exposure episodes. The aim is to tie evidence of deglaciation in the past to specific periods of warmer climate and thus to gauge the ice sheet's response to known climate conditions.

This project will collect short bedrock samples, approximately 20 cm in length, beneath the ice sheet near the Ohio Range and Scott Glacier in the Transantarctic Mountains. The sub-ice bedrock samples collected in the study will be analyzed for cosmogenic nuclide concentrations to constrain past variability in the ice volume and height of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS). Data obtained from the research will provide targets for data-ice sheet model comparisons to accurately characterize Plio-Pleistocene and future WAIS behavior.

This project will measure the modern spatial gradients in accumulation rate, surface temperature, and water stable isotopes from shallow ice cores in the upstream catchment area of the South Pole 1500-m Ice Core (SPICE Core) to separate spatial (advection) variations from temporal (climate) variations recorded in the SPICE Core record. The project will also improve the SPICE Core ice and gas chronologies by making measurements of ice-flow and snow compaction in the upstream catchment in order to constrain age models of the SPICE Core ice. The new ice-flow measurements will make it possible to define the path of ice from upstream to the SPICE Core drill site to assess spatial gradients in snowfall and to infer histories of snowfall from internal layers within the ice sheet. Results from the project will directly enhance interpretation of the SPICE Core records, and also advance understanding of firn densification and drive next-generation firn models.

The Velvet Ice project will conduct repeat borehole logging of the WAIS Divide deep borehole to study three primary questions: (1) How does the evolution of ice microstructure with time and stress in an ice sheet relate to impurity content, temperature history, and strain rate history? (2) How do variations in ice microstructure (and impurity content?) affect large-scale (1m to 1000m) ice flow patterns near ice sheet centers? (3) In what ways is the spatial variability of ice microstructure and its effect on ice flow important for interpretation of climate history in the WAIS Divide ice core? The answers to these questions require integrating existing ice core and borehole data with a detailed study of ice microstructure using Electron Backscatter Diffraction (EBSD) techniques in combination with careful measurements of borehole deformation through time using Acoustic and Optical Televiewers.

This project will utilize the Intermediate Depth Logging Winch to log the Rapid Access Ice Drill (RAID) field trial borehole drilled in 2016-2017 near Minna Bluff in Antarctica. The age of the ice will be determined by optical borehole logging. This field trial will be critical in determining whether or not the RAID borehole wall roughness, and cleanliness, permits optical logging at the level of detail needed for accurate dating of the ice.

This project involves the seasonal (winter) acquisition of cores from ice-covered northern (U.S. Midwest) temperate lakes and rivers to investigate the spatial and temporal distribution of planktonic ice nucleating activity in freshwater ecosystems.

This project will use a hand auger and sidewinder to drill several shallow (20-30 meter depth) ice cores along a traverse in western Greenland from Raven to Summit via snowmobile during the 2016 Arctic season. Continuous ground penetrating radar data will also be collected during the traverse. The research objectives include: (1) determining the patterns, in time and space, of snow accumulation in Western Greenland over the past 20-40 years; and (2) evaluating surface melt refreeze and englacial meltwater storage in the Western Greenland percolation zone over the past 20-40 years.

This project will drill two shallow ice cores in the Twin Lakes region of northern Wyoming using the Prairie Dog drilling system and a Sidewinder power drive. The goal of the project is to use the recovered ice cores to obtain organic lag deposits. Previous ice cores obtained from ice patches by the investigator have yielded lags containing significant materials ranging from intact fecal pellets from Bighorn sheep to Dryas leaves to the remains of probable Rocky Mountain locust (cf. Melanopus spretus). The target material the investigators hope to recover will be submitted for radiocarbon dating, environmental DNA analysis, macrofloral analysis, and pollen analysis.

The project aims to understand the dynamics of ice rises — grounded islands within ice shelves — as they result in a major resistive force on ice flowing from the grounded ice sheets into the ocean. An integrated collection of geophysical observations, including radar and active source seismic experiments, on both the Crary Ice Rise and across its grounding line will be used to address questions about how the ice rise affects ice discharge from the Ross Sea sector of West Antarctica. The Small Hot Water Drill will be used to create the shot holes needed for the seismic work.

For this project, IDDO will work with RAID co-PI Jeff Severinghaus and personnel from DOSECC Exploration Services (DES) to test the RAID packer device near Castle Rock outside of McMurdo Station. The field team will also test the feasibility of auger use for creating initial pilot holes for borehole casing installation.

This project will collect approximately 10 shallow ice cores at Taylor Glacier and analyze them for dust concentration, dust size distribution, bulk major elements, bulk trace elements, and radiogenic isotope composition. These measurements will be used to deduce the changing climate of the Taylor Dome area from the Last Glacial Maximum through the Holocene.

Using the Blue Ice Drill, this project will collect large-diameter ice cores to (1) investigate carbon-14 of methane in ice during the last deglaciation and the Early Holocene, (2) investigate the carbon-14 of methane, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide produced in ice by cosmic rays, and (3) continue to age-map the outcropping ice stratigraphy of Taylor Glacier.

Using the Badger-Eclipse Drill and one IDP driller, the project will incrementally drill two 3-inch diameter holes to 130 meters depth for firn air sampling near the South Pole Ice (SPICE) Core deep drill site. The primary objective of the project is to construct the gas chronology for the South Pole ice core using inert gases (d15N, d40Ar) and methane in combination with a next-generation firn densification model. Reconstruction of the inert gases and methane in the South Pole ice core will improve the dating of the ice core record, to unprecedented precision, which will enhance the overall scientific return from the ice core.

The South Pole Ice Core project is a U.S. effort to drill and recover a new ice core from South Pole, Antarctica. The ice core will be drilled to a depth of 1500 meters, providing an environmental record spanning approximately 40,000 years that will be used to investigate the magnitude and timing of changes in climate and climate forcing through time. Drilling is planned for 2014-2015 (~700 m / through the Holocene) and 2015-2016 (to 1500 m / 40,000 years). The ice core we will obtain will be 9.8 cm in diameter.

Using a PICO Hand Auger, this project will collect short ice cores from the Mt. Achernar, Transantarctic Mountains, region to recover ice for visual inspection and various types of isotopic analysis. The primary objective of the project is to gain an improved understanding of processes and rates of blue ice moraine formation, as well as identifying the topographic, glaciological, and climatic controls on their evolution. Field data related to ice motion and internal stratigraphy will be collected and used as part of a baseline dataset for a numerical model.

Previous field expeditions to the Allan Hills blue ice area have recovered ice cores that date to one million years, the oldest ice cores yet recovered from Antarctica. These records have revealed that interglacial CO2 concentrations decreased by 800,000 years ago and that, in the warmer world 1 million years ago, CO2 and Antarctic temperature were linked as during the last 800,000 years. This project will return to the Allan Hills blue ice area to recover additional ice cores that date to 1 million years or older. The climate records developed from the drilled ice cores will provide new insights into the chemical composition of the atmosphere and Antarctic climate during times of comparable or even greater warmth than the present day.

This project will follow up on the serendipitous recent discovery that liquid water is present year-round within the firn layer of the southern Greenland Ice Sheet. This discovery complicates understanding of the relationship of surface melting on the ice sheet to sea level rise by revealing another pathway for meltwater to take. Even the most fundamental questions about the firn aquifer remain unanswered. This proposal will address three essential research questions: (1) What are the pathways and connections of the firn aquifer with the broader Greenland hydrologic system and what is the aquifer's effect on sea level rise? (2) What is the mass/volume of the liquid water stored in the Greenland firn aquifer? (3) What are the rates and patterns of water flow in the aquifer? These questions will be addressed using standard groundwater sampling techniques, seismic sounding, nuclear magnetic resonance, and ice core measurements.

This project involves the seasonal (winter) acquisition of cores from ice-covered northern (U.S. Midwest) temperate lakes and rivers to investigate the spatial and temporal distribution of planktonic ice nucleating activity in freshwater ecosystems.

This project will collect a new large diameter ice core near Summit, Greenland using the Blue Ice Drill (BID), providing ice from 80 to 170 meters depth (air age from about 1960 to about 1600 AD). The ice core will be analyzed to establish the first reliable record of pre-industrial carbon monoxide (CO) concentration and stable isotope composition in the Arctic atmosphere, which would also be representative of a large part of the Northern Hemisphere.

This project will investigate the potential of carbon-14 in ice cores as an absolute dating tool, as a tracer of the past cosmic ray flux and as a recorder of the past fossil fraction of the global methane budget. Cosmic ray particles produce carbon-14 from oxygen-16 directly within near-surface glacial ice and firn. This in-situ produced carbon-14 quickly reacts to form 14C-containing carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and methane in the ice matrix. Some or all of the resulting 14C-bearing gases may be lost from the firn to the atmosphere. The proposed work will provide a thorough characterization of in-situ cosmogenic 14C in glacial firn and shallow ice in the Summit region of Greenland. It will examine the retention of cosmogenic 14C in ice grains at all depth levels in the firn column, the partitioning of 14C between carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and methane, as well as the production rates and accumulation of cosmogenic 14C in shallow ice below firn close-off.

This project will further the understanding of ocean-ice-atmosphere interaction around the Jakobshavn Isbrae and Disko Bay region of west Greenland, with a particular focus on the role of sea surface temperature and sea ice variability in modulating past outlet glacier behavior and ice sheet/cap mass balance (snowfall and melt) over the past two centuries. The PIs will reconstruct past environmental conditions in the Disko and Baffin Bay region based on new glaciochemical and stratigraphic records from three 100-m deep ice cores, several firn cores, and geophysical studies from three sites surrounding Disko Bay.

This project will use the USGS high−precision temperature logging tool to verify the condition of the main WAIS Divide borehole prior to the use of any other logging instruments. The temperature data resulting from the test will subsequently be used to refine estimates of the geothermal heat flow at the site, the melting rate at the base of the ice sheet, and to reconstruct past surface temperatures using borehole paleothermometry.

This project will profile WAIS Divide boreholes with optical logging instruments that permit the study of dust, crystal structure, and ice fabric. In addition, the project will develop novel light-weight fiber-optic instrumentation that allows complex optical sources, electronics, and detectors to remain at the surface, while fibers transmit signals to and from the borehole during logging.

The Velvet Ice project will conduct repeat borehole logging of the WAIS Divide deep borehole to study three primary questions: (1) How does the evolution of ice microstructure with time and stress in an ice sheet relate to impurity content, temperature history, and strain rate history? (2) How do variations in ice microstructure (and impurity content?) affect large-scale (1m to 1000m) ice flow patterns near ice sheet centers? (3) In what ways is the spatial variability of ice microstructure and its effect on ice flow important for the interpretation of climate history in the WAIS Divide ice core? The answers to these questions require integrating existing ice core and borehole data with a detailed study of ice microstructure using Electron Backscatter Diffraction (EBSD) techniques in combination with careful measurements of borehole deformation through time using Acoustic and Optical Televiewers.

The project will measure the internal properties of the ice at Roosevelt Island via borehole logging. Specific logging measurements include ice temperature, sonic velocity in the ice (a proxy for preferred crystal orientation fabric), and optical properties of the ice in the borehole.

The South Pole Ice Core project is a U.S. effort to drill and recover a new ice core from South Pole, Antarctica. The ice core will be drilled to a depth of 1500 meters, providing an environmental record spanning approximately 40,000 years that will be used to investigate the magnitude and timing of changes in climate and climate forcing through time. Drilling is planned for 2014-2015 (~700 m / through the Holocene) and 2015-2016 (to 1500 m / 40,000 years). The ice core we will obtain will be 9.8 cm in diameter.

Using the Blue Ice Drill, this project will collect large-diameter ice cores to (1) investigate carbon-14 of methane in ice during the last deglaciation and the Early Holocene, (2) investigate the carbon-14 of methane, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide produced in ice by cosmic rays, and (3) continue to age-map the outcropping ice stratigraphy of Taylor Glacier.

This project will utilize the borehole at WAIS Divide to collect a vertical seismic profile (VSP) of the entire ice column to constrain seismic properties through the ice column and link these observations to the physical properties of the ice core itself. The project will also perform a detailed surface−based active seismic experiment to thoroughly image the bed at WAIS Divide and see how well the two experiments correlate to each other. Since seismic attenuation is most sensitive to temperature, the project will use these two seismic datasets collected to create a model for constraining the temperature profile through the ice column.

The aim of this collaborative project between investigators at three universities is to develop records of past climate in northwest (NW) Greenland and synthesize them with records of the position of ice margin to evaluate the response of the Greenland Ice Sheet to past warm periods. In support of the project, a 30-meter ice core outside of Thule Air Base in NW Greenland will be drilled.

This project will further the understanding of ocean-ice-atmosphere interaction around the Jakobshavn Isbrae and Disko Bay region of west Greenland, with a particular focus on the role of sea surface temperature and sea ice variability in modulating past outlet glacier behavior and ice sheet/cap mass balance (snowfall and melt) over the past two centuries. The PIs will reconstruct past environmental conditions in the Disko and Baffin Bay region based on new glaciochemical and stratigraphic records from three 100-m deep ice cores, several firn cores, and geophysical studies from three sites surrounding Disko Bay.

This project will investigate the potential of carbon-14 in ice cores as an absolute dating tool, as a tracer of the past cosmic ray flux and as a recorder of the past fossil fraction of the global methane budget. Cosmic ray particles produce carbon-14 from oxygen-16 directly within near-surface glacial ice and firn. This in-situ produced carbon-14 quickly reacts to form 14C-containing carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and methane in the ice matrix. Some or all of the resulting 14C-bearing gases may be lost from the firn to the atmosphere. The proposed work will provide a thorough characterization of in-situ cosmogenic 14C in glacial firn and shallow ice in the Summit region of Greenland. It will examine the retention of cosmogenic 14C in ice grains at all depth levels in the firn column, the partitioning of 14C between carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and methane, as well as the production rates and accumulation of cosmogenic 14C in shallow ice below firn close-off.

The stable isotopic records from the Greenland Ice Sheet are the gold standard for understanding climate variations in the Arctic on decadal to millennial scales. While the basic tenets that underlie interpretation of isotopic information appear robust in a mean sense, meteorological and glaciological processes can confound simple interpretations. Processes of concern are variations in moisture sources, cloud processes, surface ablation, blowing snow and vapor diffusion in the firn. Continuous measurements of the isotopic composition of water vapor and daily measurements of the isotopic composition of freshly-fallen and blowing snow will be made at Summit (Greenland), Eureka (Ellesmere Island) and Reykjavik (Iceland). These will be combined with measurements of the amount, size distribution, and approximate habit of falling and blowing snow, turbulence measurements to evaluate snow lofting, surface latent heat flux (ablation and frost) and energy balance, and remote sensing of polar clouds and atmospheric structure. High-resolution firn cores will be drilled to reconcile the detailed isotopic measurements and modeling with glaciological records.

This project involves the seasonal (winter) acquisition of cores from ice-covered northern (U.S. midwest) temperate lakes and rivers to investigate the spatial and temporal distribution of planktonic ice nucleating activity in fresh water ecosystems.

The Beardmore Glacier Dynamics project will collect active and passive seismic observations, as well as radar measurements, to characterize the subglacial environment of Beardmore Glacier in order to improve our understanding of fast glacier motion. The science team will use a Small Hot Water Drill provided by IDP to create the shot holes needed for the seismic work.

The project will measure the internal properties of the ice at Roosevelt Island via borehole logging. Specific logging measurements include ice temperature, sonic velocity in the ice (a proxy for preferred crystal orientation fabric), and optical properties of the ice in the borehole.

Using the Blue Ice Drill, this project will collect large-diameter ice cores to (1) investigate carbon-14 of methane in ice during the last deglaciation and the Early Holocene, (2) investigate the carbon-14 of methane, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide produced in ice by cosmic rays, and (3) continue to age-map the outcropping ice stratigraphy of Taylor Glacier.

This project will collect approximately 60 samples of blue ice between 5-7 meters depth at Taylor Glacier and analyzed for dust concentration, dust size distribution, bulk major elements, bulk trace elements, and radiogenic isotope composition. These measurements will be used to deduce the changing climate of the Taylor Dome area from the Last Glacial Maximum through the Holocene.

This project will profile the Siple Dome borehole with optical logging instruments that permit the study of dust, crystal structure, and ice fabric. In addition, the project will develop novel light-weight fiber-optic instrumentation that allows complex optical sources, electronics, and detectors to remain at the surface, while fibers transmit signals to and from the borehole during logging.

The goal of this project is to analyze firn cores from McCall Glacier in the eastern Brooks Range of Alaska to better understand the processes of internal accumulation of ice within firn. The study will involve extracting firn cores from McCall Glacier to study their change over time to better understand the processes of internal accumulation of ice within firn and the effects of this process on the paleoclimate proxies they are using to interpret a previously drilled deep ice core. The plan is to take about 30 meters of core per year, as a series of about 5 m deep triplicate cores from 2 nearby locations.

This project will drill a 200-meter ice core at a low snow accumulation site in northeast Greenland during the spring of 2013. This core, along with similar archived core, will be used to obtain high-resolution measurements of aerosols and methane concentrations in the ice, which, in turn, will allow a quantitative assessment of the impact of in-situ methane production on historical records of atmospheric methane in Greenland ice cores.

The main goal of this project is to reconstruct the history of precipitation in Alaska during the last thousand years using ice core records of snow accumulation. The researchers plan to collect several new ice cores from the Mt. Hunter Plateau in the Alaska Range of Denali National Park and the new ice cores will be combined with an existing spatial array of ice cores in the region to map changes in the spatial patterns of precipitation. Because changes in atmospheric circulation patterns caused by ENSO and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) affect where the precipitation falls, this spatial array of ice cores will provide a record of how these larger scale climate systems have varied during the last thousand years. The project will focus on determining the differences in the precipitation patterns at the Little Ice Age (approximately 200 to 600 years ago) and Medieval Climate Anomaly (approximately 800 to 1,200 years ago).

This project will drill several shallow ice cores in Glacier National Park using the Prairie Dog drilling system and a Sidewinder power drive. The goal of the project is to use the recovered ice cores to obtain organic lag deposits. The target lag material the investigators hope to recover will be submitted for radiocarbon dating, environmental DNA analysis, macrofloral analysis, and pollen analysis.

This project will drill several shallow ice cores in the Twin Lakes region of northern Wyoming using the Prairie Dog drilling system and a Sidewinder power drive. The goal of the project is to use the recovered ice cores to obtain organic lag deposits. The target lag material the investigators hope to recover will be submitted for radiocarbon dating, environmental DNA analysis, macrofloral analysis, and pollen analysis.

This project will provide the first efforts at the measurement of a newly discovered component of the Greenland Ice Sheet mass balance. The perennial firn aquifer (PFA) stores liquid water in the subsurface firn year-round, including throughout the winter. It was discovered in April 2011, but there were no measurements made within the PFA, thus its volume estimate and even formation process are unknown except for those from modeling. This project will use a wide variety of techniques to provide the first measurements of liquid water storage in the PFA. Density profiles and even simple observations of PFA stratigraphy assessing the relative proportions of firn, water, and solid ice will provide valuable data needed to calculate the unknown mass of the PFA.

The stable isotopic records from the Greenland Ice Sheet are the gold standard for understanding climate variations in the Arctic on decadal to millennial scales. While the basic tenets that underlie interpretation of isotopic information appear robust in a mean sense, meteorological and glaciological processes can confound simple interpretations. Processes of concern are variations in moisture sources, cloud processes, surface ablation, blowing snow and vapor diffusion in the firn. Continuous measurements of the isotopic composition of water vapor and daily measurements of the isotopic composition of freshly-fallen and blowing snow will be made at Summit (Greenland), Eureka (Ellesmere Island) and Reykjavik (Iceland). These will be combined with measurements of the amount, size distribution, and approximate habit of falling and blowing snow, turbulence measurements to evaluate snow lofting, surface latent heat flux (ablation and frost) and energy balance, and remote sensing of polar clouds and atmospheric structure. High-resolution firn cores will be drilled to reconcile the detailed isotopic measurements and modeling with glaciological records.

This project will investigate the potential of carbon-14 in ice cores as an absolute dating tool, as a tracer of the past cosmic ray flux and as a recorder of the past fossil fraction of the global methane budget. Cosmic ray particles produce carbon-14 from oxygen-16 directly within near-surface glacial ice and firn. This in-situ produced carbon-14 quickly reacts to form 14C-containing carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and methane in the ice matrix. Some or all of the resulting 14C-bearing gases may be lost from the firn to the atmosphere. The proposed work will provide a thorough characterization of in-situ cosmogenic 14C in glacial firn and shallow ice in the Summit region of Greenland. It will examine the retention of cosmogenic 14C in ice grains at all depth levels in the firn column, the partitioning of 14C between carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and methane, as well as the production rates and accumulation of cosmogenic 14C in shallow ice below firn close-off.

The Beardmore Glacier Dynamics project will collect active and passive seismic observations, as well as radar measurements, to characterize the subglacial environment of Beardmore Glacier in order to improve our understanding of fast glacier motion. The science team will use a Small Hot Water Drill provided by IDP to create the shot holes needed for the seismic work.

Replication of results is fundamental to science, and the ability to obtain additional ice samples from "intervals of scientific interest" will aid in the replication and verification of key results from ice core science. The newly-developed Replicate Coring System will be used with the DISC Drill to obtain additional ice samples from intervals of high scientific interest within the existing West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) Divide deep borehole.

WAIS Divide is a United States deep ice coring project in West Antarctica funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). The WAIS Divide ice core will provide Antarctic records of environmental change for the last ~62,000 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.

The goal of this project is to refine the stratigraphy of outcropping ancient ice layers on Taylor Glacier, Antarctica, and collect ice samples for the reconstruction of past atmospheric composition changes. More specifically, the project aims to constrain past variability in the atmospheric methane budget by using methane concentration and stable isotope ratios measured in the ice at Taylor Glacier. Dr. Hinrich Schaefer of the National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research in New Zealand plans to drill several shallow (~20 meters depth) ice cores on Taylor Glacier in the Dry Valleys region of Antarctica using an PICO 3” hand auger and Sidewinder. Field activities will be conducted during November 2012 and are funded by Antarctica New Zealand.

The goal of this project is to analyze firn cores from McCall Glacier in the eastern Brooks Range of Alaska to better understand the processes of internal accumulation of ice within firn. The study will involve extracting firn cores from McCall Glacier to study their change over time to better understand the processes of internal accumulation of ice within firn and the effects of this process on the paleoclimate proxies they are using to interpret a previously drilled deep ice core. The plan is to take about 30 meters of core per year, as a series of about 5 m deep triplicate cores from 2 nearby locations.

The stable isotopic records from the Greenland Ice Sheet are the gold standard for understanding climate variations in the Arctic on decadal to millennial scales. While the basic tenets that underlie interpretation of isotopic information appear robust in a mean sense, meteorological and glaciological processes can confound simple interpretations. Processes of concern are variations in moisture sources, cloud processes, surface ablation, blowing snow and vapor diffusion in the firn. Continuous measurements of the isotopic composition of water vapor and daily measurements of the isotopic composition of freshly-fallen and blowing snow will be made at Summit (Greenland), Eureka (Ellesmere Island) and Reykjavik (Iceland). These will be combined with measurements of the amount, size distribution, and approximate habit of falling and blowing snow, turbulence measurements to evaluate snow lofting, surface latent heat flux (ablation and frost) and energy balance, and remote sensing of polar clouds and atmospheric structure. High-resolution firn cores will be drilled to reconcile the detailed isotopic measurements and modeling with glaciological records.

This project will drill several shallow ice cores in Glacier National Park using the PICO Hand Auger. The goal of the project is to use the recovered ice cores to obtain organic lag deposits. The target lag material the investigators hope to recover will be submitted for radiocarbon dating, environmental DNA analysis, macrofloral analysis, and pollen analysis.

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.

This project will use active source seismic methods to determine the physical conditions at the base of the Whillans Ice Stream. The science team will use a small hot water drill to create the shot holes needed for the seismic work. The hot water drill is being operated exclusively by the investigator and his field team, with IDP providing no contract driller support. For more information about the project, read Finding the sticky spot - Stagnating glacier offers array of puzzles for glaciologists to solve.

A Badger-Eclipse drill will be shipped to WAIS Divide for driller training purposes. The IDP crew will familiarize themselves with its operation as the schedule permits; this is a rare training opportunity for IDP staff and contract drillers to become familiar with the operation of an agile drill system. Several new components will also be tested, including a split ring collet and new cutters. IDP will also field test a newly-designed 3-inch hand auger at WAIS Divide to see how it performs in snow and firn. If time permits, the hand auger will also be field tested in sea ice at McMurdo Station and in ice at Taylor Glacier.

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.

The goal of this project is to analyze firn cores from McCall Glacier in the eastern Brooks Range of Alaska to better understand the processes of internal accumulation of ice within firn. The study will involve extracting firn cores from McCall Glacier to study their change over time to better understand the processes of internal accumulation of ice within firn and the effects of this process on the paleoclimate proxies they are using to interpret a previously drilled deep ice core. The plan is to take about 30 meters of core per year, as a series of about 5 m deep triplicate cores from 2 nearby locations.

The stable isotopic records from the Greenland Ice Sheet are the gold standard for understanding climate variations in the Arctic on decadal to millennial scales. While the basic tenets that underlie interpretation of isotopic information appear robust in a mean sense, meteorological and glaciological processes can confound simple interpretations. Processes of concern are variations in moisture sources, cloud processes, surface ablation, blowing snow and vapor diffusion in the firn. Continuous measurements of the isotopic composition of water vapor and daily measurements of the isotopic composition of freshly-fallen and blowing snow will be made at Summit (Greenland), Eureka (Ellesmere Island) and Reykjavik (Iceland). These will be combined with measurements of the amount, size distribution, and approximate habit of falling and blowing snow, turbulence measurements to evaluate snow lofting, surface latent heat flux (ablation and frost) and energy balance, and remote sensing of polar clouds and atmospheric structure. High-resolution firn cores will be drilled to reconcile the detailed isotopic measurements and modeling with glaciological records.

This project is investigating 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-infrared photography.

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.

This project will develop a new, international (8-nation), broadband seismic capability for Greenland - the GreenLand Ice Sheet monitoring Network (GLISN) - a real-time sensor array of 25 stations which enhances and upgrades the performance of the scarce existing Greenland seismic infrastructure for detecting, locating, and characterizing glacial earthquakes and other cryo-seismic phenomena, and contributing to our understanding of Ice Sheet dynamics. In support of this project, IDP will drill one borehole for the seismometers. In addition to drilling the hole, which must be dry and vertical, IDP will assist with the installation of the seismometers by using the drilling rig to lower the instrumentation and data cables.

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.

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.

Lake Vida is the largest lake of the McMurdo Dry Valleys, with an approximately 20 m ice cover overlaying a brine of unknown depth with at least 7 times seawater salinity and temperatures below -10 degrees C year-round. The research proposes to enter, for the first time the main brine body below the thick ice of Lake Vida and perform in situ measurements, collect samples of the brine column, and collect sediment cores from the lake bottom for detailed geochemical and microbiological analyses. The results will allow the characterization of present and past life in the lake, assessment of modern and past sedimentary processes, and determination of the lake's history. The research will be conducted by a multidisciplinary team that will uncover the biogeochemical processes associated with a non-photosynthetic microbial community isolated for a significant period of time. This research will address diversity, adaptive mechanisms and evolutionary processes in the context of the physical evolution of the environment of Lake Vida.

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).

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 the 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.

This project will use the Rapid Air Movement (RAM) Drill for testing and drilling up to 10 holes of 200 meters depth and 4-inch diameter in support of Askaryan Radio Array project activities.

This project will study the feasibility of cooling air using the firn at Summit Camp in Greenland.

This project, known as NEEM, is being undertaken by 14 nations and is led by the University of Copenhagen. The University of Colorado at Boulder is the lead U.S. institution. The goal is to retrieve ice from the last interglacial episode known as the Eemian Period that ended about 120,000 years ago. The period was warmer than today, with less ice in Greenland that led 5 meter (15-foot) higher sea levels than present--conditions similar to those Earth faces as it warms in the coming century and beyond.

This project will obtain new ice core accumulation records from Combatant Col, Mt. Waddington, in southwestern British Columbia (BC), Canada. Combatant Col is located significantly farther south than other existing ice core sites along the west coast of North America and variations in precipitation tend to be out of phase with those in Alaska and the Yukon. It is anticipated that an annually-resolved record of layer thickness will be recovered at the site to allow for a record of snow accumulation covering the last 200-1000 years. The Combatant Col record, in combination with other existing records of precipitation variability along the western margin of North America, will be used to develop an updated and improved reconstruction of precipitation variability in this region over the last 200-1000 years to address fundamental questions about Pacific decadal scale variability.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

A small team of earth scientists and engineers are using a specialized drill (the Koci 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.