Completing the WAIS Divide Ice Core CO2 record

BROOK/1246465该奖项支持一个项目，该项目旨在测量WAIS分水岭冰芯中的二氧化碳浓度，涵盖距今25,000年至60,000年的时间段，并分析选定时间间隔内二氧化碳的同位素组成。这项研究将提高对大气二氧化碳在上一个冰河时代如何变化以及为什么变化的理解，特别是关注与气候突变相关的浓度记录的突变。这些事件代表着对全球气候系统的巨大扰动，有关二氧化碳响应的更好信息应该有助于我们理解碳循环-气候反馈和气候的辐射强迫。这项研究还将改进分析方法，以支持这些目标，包括完成升华方法的开发，以取代费力的机械破碎冰以释放空气进行分析。这项拟议工作的学术价值在于，它将增加关于上一个冰期大气二氧化碳变化的幅度和时间，以及它们与南极洲区域气候、全球气候历史和北半球气候突变历史的关系的知识。建议记录的时间分辨率在大多数时间间隔内将比该时间段的先前数据集高出约4倍，对于选定的间隔最高可高出8-10倍。拟议工作的更广泛影响包括显著增加记录大气中最重要的长期温室气体历史的数据量，以及更多关于碳循环--气候反馈--预测未来气候变化的重要参数的信息。该项目将有助于培养博士后研究员，为本科生和高中生提供研究经验，并扩大到当地中学生和其他学生的范围。它还将改善俄勒冈州州立大学的分析基础设施，供今后的项目使用。

Brook/1246465 This award supports a project to measure the carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration in the WAIS Divide ice core covering the time period 25,000 to 60,000 years before present, and to analyze the isotopic composition of CO2 in selected time intervals. The research will improve understanding of how and why atmospheric CO2 varied during the last ice age, focusing particularly on abrupt transitions in the concentration record that are associated with abrupt climate change. These events represents large perturbations to the global climate system and better information about the CO2 response should inform our understanding of carbon cycle-climate feedbacks and radiative forcing of climate. The research will also improve analytical methods in support of these goals, including completing development of sublimation methods to replace laborious mechanical crushing of ice to release air for analysis. The intellectual merit of the proposed work is that it will increase knowledge about the magnitude and timing of atmospheric CO2 variations during the last ice age, and their relationship to regional climate in Antarctica, global climate history, and the history of abrupt climate change in the Northern Hemisphere. The temporal resolution of the proposed record will in most intervals be ~ 4 x higher than previous data sets for this time period, and for selected intervals up to 8-10 times higher. Broader impacts of the proposed work include a significant addition to the amount of data documenting the history of the most important long-lived greenhouse gas in the atmosphere and more information about carbon cycle-climate feedbacks - important parameters for predicting future climate change. The project will contribute to training a postdoctoral researcher, research experience for an undergraduate and a high school student, and outreach to local middle school and other students. It will also improve the analytical infrastructure at OSU, which will be available for future projects.