PIRE: International Collaboration and Education in Ice Core Science (ICE-ICS)

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This interdisciplinary PIRE project will focus on the history of Earth's environment as recorded in ice of the Polar Regions. The project brings together teams from eight U.S. universities and five international research institutions located in Denmark, France, Switzerland, and Japan. Together these partners will build on recent technical developments and utilize samples secured via major international ice core-drilling programs for the purpose of refining glaciological models and advancing the study of ice cores as records of climate. This will be accomplished by developing and applying the next generation of laboratory techniques and mathematical tools to study ice cores. Specifically, the PIRE team expects to produce: 1) new analytical tools and measurements for trace gases in ice and new measurements of dust and isotopes in polar regions, 2) a mathematical model of the physics of atmospheric gases trapped in snow that is changing from firn ice to glacial ice, and 3) useful new data and models to elucidate mechanisms of abrupt climate change that occurred in the past. If successful, results should yield new insights to help describe the link between climate change and the biogeochemical cycling of greenhouses gases on a global scale.By drawing on complementary U.S. and international expertise, facilities and data, this PIRE collaboration in ice core science is expected to: improve the rate and quality of data acquisition about past changes in climate and atmospheric conditions, develop promising new measurements that inform us about past environmental conditions, and improve our understanding of their meaning. Furthermore, chief among its broader impacts, the ICE-ICS PIRE should provide a strong, more coherent focus for the U.S. ice core community and contribute to an increasingly significant international presence for that community, which should enhance the long-term role of U.S. investigators in future international climate-related projects. Under the PIRE education component, a cohort of five U.S. post-doctoral researchers and sixty-three undergraduate and graduate students will receive training and contribute to the overall ice core science agenda in cooperation with senior U.S. researchers and leading investigators from the foreign institutions. Across this impressive research and institutional network, a carefully integrated five-year set of educational activities will incorporate international research visits and workshops as well as short courses, virtual seminars, and networking within the U.S. ice core community. Post-doctoral researchers and graduate students will gain additional experience in planning multi-investigator projects, teaching, and mentoring. The PIRE collaborative experience is designed to provide a unique training opportunity for these junior U.S. participants who should be well positioned to lead the next generation of polar research, which has rapidly become an important international field of endeavor. Overall, the extensive ICE-ICS team of researchers, students and institutions is poised to deliver an innovative and broad spectrum of science associated with the study of ice cores, in a way not possible to achieve in isolation. The project will also have a significant impact on education of U.S. polar scientists who are typically trained at one institution without access to the full spectrum of disciplines necessary to take advantage of research opportunities in polar science. Current U.S. study of the ice core record is distributed among a number of small university research groups scattered widely around the country. Different research structures in Europe and Asia have led to several recent major scientific successes. This project will focus U.S. investigators and students around a common theme with international partners creating a more integrated U.S. community that can plan and implement ambitious projects and provide a formal venue for interaction with international groups. The project will also enhance opportunities for sharing and collaboration in graduate student and post-doctoral education by developing the connections needed for a sustained level of international collaboration in graduate and postdoctoral education beyond the duration of the award. U.S. institutions will be linked together in this interdisciplinary network and gain experience with joint international support of graduate students and post doctoral researchers. The project will also broaden the virtual international reach of U.S. institutions as PIRE team members will use video-conferencing regularly, develop remote operation of research equipment, and engage in interactive international modelling by making the firn ice model widely accessible as it is being developed and tested.Participating U.S. institutions are: Oregon State University, Dartmouth College (NH), Scripps Institution of Oceanography at University of California-San Diego, Desert Research Institute (NV), The Pennsylvania State University, University of Washington, Columbia University (NY), and University of Colorado. International partner institutions are: The Niels Bohr Institute-University of Copenhagen (Denmark), University of Grenoble (France), Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et l' Environment (LSCE) (France), University of Bern (Switzerland), and the National Institute of Polar Research (Japan). This PIRE grant is supported cofunded by NSF's Office of International Science and Engineering and the Office of Polar Programs.