Climate Studies Using Antarctic Deep Ice Cores and Firn Air Samples

该奖项是对一个项目的支持，该项目旨在对甲烷浓度、古大气氧的氧同位素组成以及南极深部冰芯的总气体含量的变化进行高分辨率研究。还将继续研究南极冰盖降雪中空气的浓度和同位素组成。这项工作的目标之一是利用冰层中空气中氧的甲烷浓度和氧同位素组成作为时间地层标志，以精确地对比格陵兰和南极冰芯以及冰芯与其他气候记录的对比。第二个目标是利用在格陵兰岛和南极冰芯测量的甲烷浓度和半球间梯度的变化来推断大气甲烷分布所依赖的大陆气候和生物地球化学的变化。第三个目标是利用Siple Dome冰芯中总气体含量的变化性数据，重建最后一次冰川盛期期间南极西部冰川历史的各个方面。第四个目标是参与在Vostok、Siple Dome和南极对冰雪空气化学的合作研究，这将产生许多关于冰中气体捕获以及过去100年来温室气体、氧气、微量生物气体和微量人为气体的浓度历史和同位素组成的新信息。

This award is for support for a program to make high resolution studies of variations in the concentration of methane, the oxygen- isotope composition of paleoatmospheric oxygen, and the total gas content of deep Antarctic ice cores. Studies of the concentration and isotopic composition of air in the firn of the Antarctic ice sheet will also be continued. One objective of this work is to use the methane concentration and oxygen-isotope composition of oxygen of air in ice as time-stratigraphic markers for the precise intercorrelation of Greenland and Antarctic ice cores as well as the correlation of ice cores to other climatic records. A second objective is to use variations in the concentration and interhemispheric gradient of methane measured in Greenland and Antarctic ice cores to deduce changes in continental climates and biogeochemistry on which the atmospheric methane distribution depends. A third objective is to use data on the variability of total gas content in the Siple Dome ice core to reconstruct aspects of the glacial history of West Antarctica during the last glacial maximum. The fourth objective is to participate in collaborative studies of firn air chemistry at Vostok, Siple Dome, and South Pole which will yield much new information about gas trapping in ice as well as the concentration history and isotopic composition of greenhouse gases, oxygen, trace biogenic gases and trace anthropogenic gases during the last 100 years.