Past modes of Arctic climate variability from varved sediments

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The Arctic is the region of Canada that is the most affected by global warming. The Government of Canada needs to better understand and evaluate what are the current impacts of these changes on aquatic and terrestrial environments and to estimate future conditions. This research aims to look at the fossil record to reconstruct the climate and the environment of the past. These data are used to test and validate the climate models that are used to predict future climate conditions. We look at the sediments that accumulate at the bottom of the arctic lakes and that leave - in favorable situation - a distinct layer for each year. Their analyses with an electron microscope and a scanner that retrieve the chemical composition at high resolution allow to reconstruct the mean temperature or/and the precipitation for each year. We intend to study 2 sites that will potentially enable us to obtain the longest (8000 years), annually resolved records of the High Arctic. This proposal aims to support the high costs of conducting the fieldwork on Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, for obtaining the sediment cores and the instrumental data needed for their interpretation.