USAP-DC

This award supports a project of scientific investigations along two overland traverses in East Antarctica: one going from the Norwegian Troll Station (72deg. S, 2deg. E) to the United States South Pole Station (90deg. S, 0deg. E) in 2007-2008; and a return traverse starting at South Pole Station and ending at Troll Station by a different route in 2008-2009. The project will investigate climate change in East Antarctica, with the goals of understanding climate variability in Dronning Maud Land of East Antarctica on time scales of years to centuries and determining the surface and net mass balance of the ice sheet in this sector to understand its impact on sea level. The project will also investigate the impact of atmospheric and oceanic variability and human activities on the chemical composition of firn and ice in the region, and will revisit areas and sites first explored by traverses in the 1960's, for detection of possible changes and to establish benchmark datasets for future research efforts. In terms of broader impacts, the results of this study will add to understanding of climate variability in East Antarctica and its contribution to global sea level change. The project includes international exchange of graduate students between the institutions involved and international education of undergraduate students through classes taught by the PI's at UNIS in Svalbard. It involves extensive outreach to the general public both in Scandinavia and North America through the press, television, science museums, children's literature, and web sites. Active knowledge sharing and collaboration between pioneers in Antarctic glaciology from Norway and the US, with the international group of scientists and students involved in this project, provide a unique opportunity to explore the changes that half a century have made in climate proxies from East Antarctica, scientific tools, and the culture and people of science. The project is relevant to the International Polar Year (IPY) since it is a genuine collaboration between nations: the scientists involved have complementary expertise, and the logistics involved relies on assets unique to each nation. It is truly an endeavor that neither nation could accomplish alone. This project is a part of the Trans- Antarctic Scientific Traverse Expeditions Ice Divide of East Antarctica (TASTE-IDEA) which is also part of IPY.

Person	Role
Courville, Zoe	Co-Investigator
Bell, Eric	Co-Investigator
Liston, Glen	Investigator
Scambos, Ted	Investigator
Hamilton, Gordon S.	Investigator
McConnell, Joseph	Investigator
Albert, Mary R.	Investigator
Steig, Eric J.	Investigator

Antarctic Glaciology	Award # 0963924
Antarctic Glaciology	Award # 0538495
Antarctic Glaciology	Award # 0538422
Antarctic Glaciology	Award # 0538416
Antarctic Glaciology	Award # 0538103
Antarctic Glaciology	Award # 0537532

Steig_0963924
hamilton_0440792
albert_0538495
liston_0537532
mcconnell_0538416
NSIDC-0520_1
scambos_0538103

None in the Database

Repository	Title (link)	Format(s)	Status
Project website	Norwegian-U.S. Scientific Traverse of East Antarctica	None	bad_url
NSIDC	This data set contains data from the publication Steig et al., Nature Geoscience, vol. 6, pages 372–375 (doi:10.1038/ngeo1778), which includes isotope data from the Norway-US traverse in East Antarctica.	None	bad_url
USAP-DC	Ice Core Chemistry from the Norwegian-U.S. Scientific Traverse of East Antarctica, IPY 2007-2009	None	exist

1. Arienzo, M. M., McConnell, J. R., Chellman, N., & Kipfstuhl, S. (2019). Method for Correcting Continuous Ice-Core Elemental Measurements for Under-Recovery. Environmental Science & Technology, 53(10), 5887–5894. (doi:10.1021/acs.est.9b00199)
2. Liu, P., Kaplan, J. O., Mickley, L. J., Li, Y., Chellman, N. J., Arienzo, M. M., … McConnell, J. R. (2021). Improved estimates of preindustrial biomass burning reduce the magnitude of aerosol climate forcing in the Southern Hemisphere. Science Advances, 7(22), eabc1379. (doi:10.1126/sciadv.abc1379)
3. McConnell, J. R., Chellman, N. J., Wensman, S. M., Plach, A., Stanish, C., Santibáñez, P. A., Brugger, S. O., Eckhardt, S., Freitag, J., Kipfstuhl, S., & Stohl, A. (2024). Hemispheric-scale heavy metal pollution from South American and Australian mining and metallurgy during the Common Era. Science of The Total Environment, 912, 169431. (doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.169431)