Climate, Ecosystems and Human Society as Recorded in the First Ice Core Extracted from the Tyrolean Alps

该项目将从意大利偏远的高山冰川中提取冰芯，并将其保存在俄亥俄州哥伦布市伯德极地研究中心的冰柜中，以便将来对古环境进行研究。随着全球平均地表温度的升高，重要的是要考虑物理系统和人类系统如何响应气候并与气候相互作用。缺乏来自诸如高海拔冰川等偏远地点的古环境信息，而这些信息对于连接物理系统和人类系统至关重要。南蒂罗尔是欧洲阿尔卑斯山的一个独特地区，有着非常丰富的人类历史。其最高的冰川Alto dell'Ortles（3905米）是研究过去气候、生态系统和人类社会变化的重要观测点。蒂罗尔的这一部分是欧洲阿尔卑斯地区降水率最低的，因此它的冰川可能比阿尔卑斯其他地区的冰川更古老。奥特尔斯冰原的潜力还没有被开发，主要是由于后勤运输困难。奥尔特斯山距离著名的5200年前的提洛尔冰人从融化的冰原中出现的地方只有30公里。这一发现表明，在过去5200年里，过去几十年是阿尔卑斯山这一地区有记录以来最热的时期。事实上，该地区的冰川正在迅速萎缩，在奥尔特斯山的这一独特的古环境冰川档案丢失之前，将其找回是当务之急。这项打捞任务将确保有可能获得保存下来的信息，这些信息有可能突出过去一千年来蒂罗尔阿尔卑斯地区气候、生态系统和人类社会的调节关系。这些冰芯有可能促进对阿尔卑斯山地区气候、植被和土地利用过去和未来变化的理解。奥尔特斯山的冰芯历史将填补欧洲阿尔卑斯山冰芯空间分布的重要空白。最终，他们的记录将提供一个独特的标准，与其他欧洲记录和从低纬度地区提取的气候、生态系统和人类社会记录进行比较。

This project will extract ice-cores from a remote Alpine glacier in Italy and secure them in freezers at the Byrd Polar Research Center in Columbus, Ohio to enable future research on paleo-environments. As globally averaged surface temperatures increase it is important to consider how physical and human systems respond to and interact with climate. There is a lack of paleo-environmental information from remote sites such as high altitude glaciers that are essential to link physical and human systems. South Tyrol is a unique area in the European Alps with a very rich human history. Its highest glacier, the Alto dell'Ortles (3905 meters) constitutes an important observational point to study past changes in climate, ecosystems and human society. This part of Tyrol is characterized by the lowest precipitation rate in the European Alps and thus its glaciers are likely to contain ice histories older than those from other Alpine locations. The potential of Mt. Ortles ice field has not been explored, mainly due to the difficult logistical access. Mt. Ortles is located only about 30 km from where the famous 5,200 year old Tyrolean Ice Man emerged from an ablating ice field. This discovery suggests that the last few decades were the warmest on record over the last 5,200 years in this region of the Alps. Indeed glaciers are rapidly shrinking in this area and it is a high priority to retrieve this unique paleo-environmental glacial archive from Mt. Ortles before it is lost. This salvage mission will ensure the possibility of obtaining the preserved information with the potential to highlight relationships regulating climate, ecosystems and human society in the Tyrolean Alps during the last millennium.The ice cores have the potential to advance the understanding of past and future changes in climate, vegetation, and land use in a region of the Alps. The Mt. Ortles ice core histories will fill an important gap in the spatial distribution of ice cores retrieved from the European Alps. Ultimately their records will offer a unique yardstick to be compared with other European records and those from low-latitude sites where records of climate, ecosystems, and human societies have been extracted.