Sensitivity of the Antarctic Ice Sheet to Late Quaternary Climat Change

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This award is for support of a project to assess mechanisms of Antarctic ice-sheet and paleoclimatic evolution through the last glacial cycle in the Ross Embayment. Detailed examination of the glacial geology and isotope chronology of carefully selected field areas will be undertaken in order to test hypotheses of extensive or limited grounded ice in the Ross Embayment at the last glacial maximum. Intergration of this geologic record with ice-core glaciochemistry from the McMurdo Dome core will produce the first isotopically dated Antarctic paleoclimatic curve. This information will allow disentanglement of important paleoclimatic forcings of ice sheet evolution, evaluation of hypotheses of ice-age climate dynamics requiring rapid, synchronous global change, and tests of the sensitivity of the West Antarctic ice sheet to climate change.