Collaborative Research: Gases in Firn Air and Shallow Ice at the Proposed WAIS Drilling Site

该奖项支持了一个项目，该项目测量了来自WAIS分水岭站点的浅钻孔和冰芯中的固体空气和闭塞空气的元素和同位素组成，该站点计划在2006-07年及随后的季节进行深度冰芯采集项目。三个主要目标是：1)确定现场固定空气运动和捕获的性质，以帮助解释深层岩心的气体数据；2)扩大可在冰中测量的大气痕量气体种类，并复制其他物种的现有记录；3)对所有合作实验室进行相互校准，以确保成分和同位素数据集具有相互可比性。该计划将在05/06年的油田季节开始进行浅层钻井计划，该计划将回收两个300多米的岩心和固定空气样本。冰芯和凝固的空气将提供700多年的大气历史，这将用于解决与这段时间内大气变化有关的一些重要问题。该研究小组由六个美国实验室组成，它们也计划参与深核项目。这个合作研究项目有很多优点。首先，科学家们将能够先验地协调样本分配，以最大限度地提高相关物种记录的分辨率和重叠度。其次，样本登记将是准确的，允许所有记录的直接比较。第三，同时产生一个连贯的数据集，所有PI。S将参与结果的解释和发布。这将确保对WAIS Divide现场的气体记录有最好的了解，并确保及时进行所有解释深部岩心所需的工作。该提案创建的协作结构将鼓励实验室之间共享技术、设备和想法。这项研究将确定各种工业/农业活动的影响，并有助于将其与自然变化区分开来，并将包括没有长期人为影响记录的物种。这项工作还将有助于预测未来的大气负荷。该项目将有助于培养多个层次的科学家，包括7名本科生、2名研究生和1名博士后。

This award supports a project to measure the elemental and isotopic composition of firn air and occluded air in shallow boreholes and ice cores from the WAIS Divide site, the location of a deep ice-coring program planned for 2006-07 and subsequent seasons. The three primary objectives are: 1) to establish the nature of firn air movement and trapping at the site to aid interpretations of gas data from the deep core; 2) to expand the suite of atmospheric trace gas species that can be measured in ice and replicate existing records of other species; and 3) to inter-calibrate all collaborating labs to insure that compositional and isotopic data sets are inter-comparable. The program will be initiated with a shallow drilling program during the 05/06 field season which will recover two 300+m cores and firn air samples. The ice core and firn air will provide more than 700 years of atmospheric history that will be used to address a number of important questions related to atmospheric change over this time period. The research team consists of six US laboratories that also plan to participate in the deep core program. This collaborative research program has a number of advantages. First, the scientists will be able to coordinate sample allocation a priori to maximize the resolution and overlap of records of interrelated species. Second, sample registration will be exact, allowing direct comparison of all records. Third, a coherent data set will be produced at the same time and all PI.s will participate in interpreting and publishing the results. This will insure that the best possible understanding of gas records at the WAIS Divide site will be achieved, and that all work necessary to interpret the deep core is conducted in a timely fashion. The collaborative structure created by the proposal will encourage sharing of techniques, equipment, and ideas between the laboratories. The research will identify impacts of various industrial/agricultural activities and help to distinguish them from natural variations, and will include species for which there are no long records of anthropogenic impact. The work will also help to predict future atmospheric loadings. The project will contribute to training scientists at several levels, including seven undergraduates, two graduate students and one post doctoral fellow.