Temperature Variability of the Last 1000 years in East Antarctica

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This award supports a pilot ice-core drilling and analysis program to test the feasibility of obtaining well-dated, high-resolution isotope and chemistry records from East Antarctica. Shallow ice cores will be obtained from two locations: 1) ~100 from South Pole towards North Victoria Land, as an extension of the Byrd Station-to-South Pole ITASE traverse [International Trans Antarctic Scientific Expedition]; 2) at Taylor Dome, near the original deep coring site. Each of these cores will be sampled at very high resolution (~1/2 cm) and analyzed for stable isotope (delta D or delta 18-O) at the University of Washington. The cores will also be analyzed for trace ions at the University of Maine, under separate funding. The resulting time series, if they can be well dated as we expect, will be used to calibrate against the instrumental temperature record, brightness temperature observations from satellites and operational weather forecast reanalysis data sets. Results from this calibration work will be used to help plan a program of larger scope, with the objective of mapping the spatial expression of climate variability in East Antarctica. A summary document will be produced and made available to the community to help with planning of related field programs (e.g. deep ice radar, firn radar profiling, atmospheric chemistry, ice coring, snow surface properties for satellite observations, ice surface elevation and mass balance).