P2C2: Climate and Environmental Variability over the Last Glacial Cycle from Ice Cores in the Western Kunlun Mountains (Tibetan Plateau)

该奖项使用资金进行俄亥俄州州立大学伯德极地与气候研究中心（BPCRC）和中国国家科学院青藏高原研究所（ITP）之间的合作考察，以恢复和分析来自古里亚冰盖的四个冰芯（6）700米）在西藏高原（TP）的西昆仑山该项目涉及美国和中国科学家之间强大而平等的研究伙伴关系，并有机会获得北方最古老的冰川记录之一。可以帮助理解自然气候的变化。 因此，该项目将有助于促进区域国际科学合作，并支持两名研究生和一名博士后学者。 尽管1992年对古里亚冰帽（GIC）进行了调查，并成功地在山顶外的一个地点钻到了基岩，但后勤和时间限制阻止了山顶钻探，当时几乎没有测年技术可以帮助建立一个超过10万年的可靠时间尺度。 最近增强的物流和技术将有助于国际研究团队显著解决这些以前的障碍。 在过去10万年中产生的短期（十年）到长期（千年）时间序列可以为地球上研究最少的地方之一的气候、大气和环境变化提供长期背景。气候信号在预期的末次冰期循环（LGC）的时间记录在这些冰芯将使用连续的高分辨率稳定同位素，冰川化学，灰尘，微量元素和黑碳测量进行评估。具体而言，研究小组将侧重于以下目标：（1）记录GIC中记录的过去和现在的气候突变，并评估过去25年世纪的气候变化情况;（2）为低海拔地点和山顶的古里亚冰芯建立严格限制的时间尺度;（3）确定自Eemian时期以来使GIC得以生存的大气和气候动力学（~ 130，000年前），而东部和南部的其他TP冰川仅可追溯到全新世早期或中期;（4）评估全新世、末次冰期、Eemian及以后气候和环境变化的区域特征，以及它们与其他地方（包括极地地区）的条件相比如何。

This award uses funds to conduct a collaborative expedition between The Ohio State University's Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center (BPCRC) and the Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research (ITP) of the Chinese National Academy of Sciences to recover and analyze four ice cores from the Guliya ice cap (6,700 meters) in the western Kunlun Mountains on the Tibetan Plateau (TP).This project involves a strong and equal research partnership between scientists from the U.S. and China and the opportunity to obtain one of the oldest ice records in the Northern Hemisphere that could help understand natural climate variability. As such, the project will help foster regional international scientific collaborations and support two graduate students and a postdoctoral scholar. Although the Guliya ice cap (GIC) was surveyed and successfully drilled to bedrock at an off-summit site in 1992, logistical and time limitations prevented summit drilling, and few dating techniques were available at that time to help establish a robust timescale beyond 100,000 years Before Present (BP). Recently enhanced logistics and technologies will help the international research team significantly address these former impediments. The short (decadal) to long (millennial) term time series produced over the last 100,000 years could provide a long-term context for climatic, atmospheric and environmental variability in one of the least studied places on Earth. Climate signals over the anticipated Last Glacial Cycle (LGC) time record in these ice cores will be assessed using continuous high-resolution stable isotopic, glaciochemical, dust, trace element, and black carbon measurements. Specifically, the research team will focus on the following objectives: (1) document abrupt climate variations, both past and present, recorded in the GIC and assess how climate has changed over the last quarter century; (2) establish tightly constrained timescales for the Guliya ice cores from both the lower elevation site and the summit; (3) determine the atmospheric and climatological dynamics that allowed the GIC to survive since the Eemian Period (~130,000 ago) while other TP glaciers to the east and south date back only to the Early or Middle Holocene Period, and; (4) assess the regional characteristics of climatic and environmental variability during the Holocene, Last Glacial Stage, Eemian and beyond and how they compare to conditions elsewhere, including the Polar Regions.