Antarctic Glaciology

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Antarctic Glaciology
Antarctic Sciences Section

• Julie Palais
• Program Manager
• NSF/Office of Polar Programs

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Antarctic Glaciology Program

• Paleoclimate from ice cores (WAISCORES, ITASE)
• Ice dynamics and modeling (WAIS)
• Snow/Atmosphere/Ice interactions (ITASE)
• Glacial Geology ( Dry Valleys, Antarctic
  Peninsula)
• Other (Remote Sensing, Iceberg Studies)

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Paleoclimate from Ice Cores

• Taylor Dome Ice Core
• Vostok Ice Core
• Siple Dome Ice Core
• Upcoming WAIS Divide Project
• Byrd Ice Core
• Misc. other cores (e.g. South Pole)
• Shallow cores from ITASE traverses

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Facilities/Support Services

• National Ice Core Laboratory (NICL)
• NICL-Science Management Office (NICL-SMO)
• Antarctic Glaciological Data Center (AGDC)
• Ice Core Drilling Service (ICDS)

• NSF-USGS Cooperative Agreement Located at the
  Denver Federal Center

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Ice Core Drilling Services (ICDS)University of
Wisconsin-Madison (formerly PICO)

• Design, fabrication and operation of ice drilling
  equipment in both polar regions and high
  altitude ice caps.
• Includes electro-mechanical ice core drills, hot
  water drills for deep access holes, shot holes
  for seismic sounding and sub-ice sampling.
• Notify relevant NSF program manager when you are
  requesting ice coring support.

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West Antarctic Ice Sheet Divide Ice Core
ProjectClimate, Ice Sheet History , Cryobiology

• Institutions involved
• DRI/U. Nevada,
• U. Colo.
• U.C. Irvine
• U.C. Berkeley
• Penn. State
• U. Washington
• South Dakota State
• Scripps/UCSD
• Univ. of New Hampshire
• Bowdoin (Maine)
• Oregon State U.

• Chief Scientist Kendrick Taylor, Desert Research
  Institute
• 20 awards
• 11 institutions
• 3.7M in commitments
• 11 pending requests for over 3.3M

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West Antarctic Ice Sheet Program (WAIS)
WAIS (http//igloo.gsfc.nasa.gov/wais/)
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West Antarctic Ice Sheet Program (WAIS)
Ice Dynamics Studies of the Siple Coast Ice
Streams

• How will the unstable West Antarctic ice sheet
  affect future sea level?
• How do rapid global climate changes occur?
• Future sea-level rise?

Annual WAIS Workshop Sept. 27-30, 2006 Pack
Forest Conference Center, Washington (near Mt.
Rainier)
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U.S.- International Trans-Antarctic Scientific
Expedition (U.S.-ITASE)
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U.S.- International Trans-Antarctic Scientific
Expedition (U.S.-ITASE)

• To determine the spatial variability of Antarctic
  climate over the last 200 years.
• To determine the environmental variability in
  Antarctica over the last 200 years.

• Meteorology
• Remote Sensing
• Geophysics
• Surface Glaciology
• Ice Cores

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Icebergs and Ice Shelves
Current Research

• Monitoring an Active Rift System at the Front of
  the Amery Ice Shelf, East Antarctica (Fricker)
• Collaborative Research of Earths Largest
  Icebergs ((MacAyeal, Okal, Stearns)
• Melting and Calving of Antarctic Ice Shelves
  (Jacobs)

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Antarctic Glaciology Program

• Examples of Currently Funded Projects

• Collaborative Research Constructing an
  Ultra-high Resolution Atmospheric Methane Record
  for the Last 140,000 Years from WAIS Divide Core.
  (Sowers et al., Penn. State Univ. and other
  institutions)
• Collaborative Research Fluctuations of the West
  Antarctic Ice Sheet in Relation to Lake History
  in Taylor Valley, Antarctica, Since the Last
  Glacial Maximum (Prentice et al., Plymouth State
  Univ. and other institutions)
• Collaborative Research Grounding Line Forensics
  The History of Grounding Line Retreat in the Kamb
  Ice Stream Outlet Region (Catania, Univ. of
  Texas-Austin and Hulbe, Portland State Univ.)
• US ITASE Glaciochemistry Phase 2 East Antarctica
  (Mayewski, University of Maine)
• http//www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/tab.do?dispatch2

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Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets (CReSIS)
OPP-0122520 "A Mobile Sensor Web for Polar Ice
Sheet Measurements."
OPP-0424589 Center for Remote Sensing of Ice
Sheets (Science and Technology Center)

• http//www.cresis.ku.edu/index.html