A New Ice Core from the Devon Ice Cap Canadian Arctic: Continued Development of High-resolution Proxy Records to Evaluate the Regionalization of Climate in the Circum-Arctic

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Proposal Number: OPP-9808960Principal Investigator: Zielinski, GregoryThe Principal Investigators will analyze and interpret time series of major ions, insoluble microparticles, and methanesulfonic acid (MSA) from a new 300-foot long ice core from the Devon Ice Cap, Devon Island, Canada. This is a collaborative project with the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC) and Nagaoka Institute of Snow and Ice Studies. Oxygen isotope analyses, direct-current solid electric conductivity (ECM) and the percentage of annual melt layers will be analyzed by scientists at GSC. The results will be a continuous, high-resolution (subannual to decadal) multivariate record of Holocene change of the high Arctic. The results will also complement those from the Penny Ice Cap core (Baffin Island). Snowpit studies that were done while coring the first Devon ice core will provide critical information on the modern characteristics of both the glaciochemical species and insoluble microparticles. This new core is necessary to validate or refute those incongruous findings found in the previously drilled Devon Island ice core with other cores drilled around the Canadian High Arctic.Analyses of all the major soluble and insoluble components of the atmosphere as preserved in the Devon ice core will enable the Principal Investigators to determine the composition of the paleoatmosphere in the eastern Canadian Arctic. The results should provide important information on the timing and cause of climatic change during the Holocene and the regionalization of that change. The results will also allow the Principal Investigators to establish a positive relationship between sea salt species and recent sea-ice extent to provide important data needed to reconstruct relative sea ice extent and the rapidity of changes in that extent over the last 10,000 years. These data may be used to gain a better understanding of how human populations were impacted by sea ice extent. This high-resolution core is critical as major episodic events such as volcanic eruptions and large biomass burning events, which are evident in ice cores, are factored into the analyses. These findings should contribute to the evaluation of spatial variability of anthropogenic emission deposition in the Arctic. The compilation of all the data sets from circum-arctic ice cores will make a major contribution in understanding the impact that the Arctic may have on global change.