USAP-DC

Taylor/0944348

This award supports renewal of funding of the WAIS Divide Science Coordination Office (SCO). The Science Coordination Office (SCO) was established to represent the research community and facilitates the project by working with support organizations responsible for logistics, drilling, and core curation. During the last five years, 26 projects have been individually funded to work on this effort and 1,511 m of the total 3,470 m of ice at the site has been collected. This proposal seeks funding to continue the SCO and related field operations needed to complete the WAIS Divide ice core project. Tasks for the SCO during the second five years include planning and oversight of logistics, drilling, and core curation; coordinating research activities in the field; assisting in curation of the core in the field; allocating samples to individual projects; coordinating the sampling effort; collecting, archiving, and distributing data and other information about the project; hosting an annual science meeting; and facilitating collaborative efforts among the research groups. The intellectual merit of the WAIS Divide project is to better predict how human-caused increases in greenhouse gases will alter climate requires an improved understanding of how previous natural changes in greenhouse gases influenced climate in the past. Information on previous climate changes is used to validate the physics and results of climate models that are used to predict future climate. Antarctic ice cores are the only source of samples of the paleo-atmosphere that can be used to determine previous concentrations of carbon dioxide. Ice cores also contain records of other components of the climate system such as the paleo air and ocean temperature, atmospheric loading of aerosols, and indicators of atmospheric transport. The WAIS Divide ice core project has been designed to obtain the best possible record of greenhouse gases during the last glacial cycle (last ~100,000 years). The site was selected because it has the best balance of high annual snowfall (23 cm of ice equivalent/year), low dust Antarctic ice that does not compromise the carbon dioxide record, and favorable glaciology. The main science objectives of the project are to investigate climate forcing by greenhouse gases, initiation of climate changes, stability of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, and cryobiology in the ice core. The project has numerous broader impacts. An established provider of educational material (Teachers? Domain) will develop and distribute web-based resources related to the project and climate change for use in K?12 classrooms. These resources will consist of video and interactive graphics that explain how and why ice cores are collected, and what they tell us about future climate change. Members of the national media will be included in the field team and the SCO will assist in presenting information to the general public. Video of the project will be collected and made available for general use. Finally, an opportunity will be created for cryosphere students and early career scientists to participate in field activities and core analysis. An ice core archive will be available for future projects and scientific discoveries from the project can be used by policy makers to make informed decisions.

Person	Role
Mark, Twickler	Investigator
Taylor, Kendrick C.	Investigator

Antarctic Earth Sciences	Award # 0944348
Antarctic Glaciology	Award # 0944348
Antarctic Earth Sciences	Award # 0944266
Antarctic Glaciology	Award # 0944266

USAP-0944348
USAP-0944266

None in the Database

Repository	Title (link)	Format(s)	Status
USAP-DC	Summary of Results from the WAIS Divide Ice Core Project	None	exist
USAP-DC	WAIS Divide WDC06A Core Quality Versus Depth	None	exist

1. Buizert, C., K.M. Cuffey, J.P. Severinghaus, D. Baggenstos, T.J. Fudge, E.J. Steig, T.A. Sowers, E.J. Brook, R.H. Rhodes, H. Cheng, L.R. Edwards, M. Sigl, J.R. McConnell, and K.C. Taylor (2015). The WAIS Divide deep ice core WD2014 chronology - Part 1: Methane synchronization (68-31 ka BP) and the gas age-ice age difference, Clim. Past, 11, 153-173, doi:10.5194/cp-11-153-2015. (doi:10.5194/cp-11-153-2015)
2. Cole-Dai, J., D.G. Ferris, A.L. Lanciki, J. Savarino, and J.R. McConnell (2013) Two climate-impacting volcanic eruptions in the 1450s C.E. found in a bipolar, sub-annually dated 800-year ice core record, J. Geophys. Res., 118, 7459-7466. (doi:10.1002/jgrd.50587)
3. Sigl M, Fudge TJ, Winstrup M, Cole-Dai J, Ferris D, McConnell JR, Taylor KC, Welten KC, Woodruff TE, Adolphi F, Bisiaux M, Brook EJ, Buizert C, Caffee MW, Dunbar NW, Edwards R, Geng L, Iverson N, Koffman B, Layman L, Maselli OJ, McGwire K, Muscheler R, Nishiizumi K, Pasteris DR, Rhodes RH, Sowers TA. 2016. The WAIS Divide deep ice core WD2014 chronology -Part 2: Annual-layer counting (0.31 ka BP). Climate of the Past, 12, p. 769-786. doi: 10.5194/cp-12-769-2016. (doi:10.5194/cp-12-769-2016)
4. Sigl, M., Fudge, T. J., Winstrup, M., Cole-Dai, J., Ferris, D., McConnell, J. R., … Sowers, T. A. (2015). The WAIS Divide deep ice core WD2014 chronology – Part 2: Annual-layer counting (0–31 ka BP). Climate of the Past Discussions, 11(4), 3425–3474. (doi:10.5194/cpd-11-3425-2015)
5. Lee, M. J., Kyle, P. R., Iverson, N. A., Lee, J. I., & Han, Y. (2019). Rittmann volcano, Antarctica as the source of a widespread 1252 ± 2 CE tephra layer in Antarctica ice. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 521, 169–176. (doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2019.06.002)
6. McConnell, J. R., Burke, A., Dunbar, N. W., Köhler, P., Thomas, J. L., Arienzo, M. M., … Winckler, G. (2017). Synchronous volcanic eruptions and abrupt climate change ∼17.7 ka plausibly linked by stratospheric ozone depletion. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114(38), 10035–10040. (doi:10.1073/pnas.1705595114)
7. Koutnik, M. R., Fudge, T. J., Conway, H., Waddington, E. D., Neumann, T. A., Cuffey, K. M., … Taylor, K. C. (2016). Holocene accumulation and ice flow near the West Antarctic Ice Sheet Divide ice core site. Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface, 121(5), 907–924. (doi:10.1002/2015jf003668)
8. Fudge, T. J., Taylor, K. C., Waddington, E. D., Fitzpatrick, J. J., & Conway, H. (2016). Electrical stratigraphy of the WAIS Divide ice core: Identification of centimeter-scale irregular layering. Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface, 121(7), 1218–1229. (doi:10.1002/2016jf003845)
9. Jones, T. R., Cuffey, K. M., White, J. W. C., Steig, E. J., Buizert, C., Markle, B. R., … Sigl, M. (2017). Water isotope diffusion in the WAIS Divide ice core during the Holocene and last glacial. Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface, 122(1), 290–309. (doi:10.1002/2016jf003938)
10. Rhodes, R. H., Brook, E. J., McConnell, J. R., Blunier, T., Sime, L. C., Faïn, X., & Mulvaney, R. (2017). Atmospheric methane variability: Centennial-scale signals in the Last Glacial Period. Global Biogeochemical Cycles, 31(3), 575–590. (doi:10.1002/2016gb005570)
11. Buizert, C., Cuffey, K. M., Severinghaus, J. P., Baggenstos, D., Fudge, T. J., Steig, E. J., … Taylor, K. C. (2014). The WAIS-Divide deep ice core WD2014 chronology – Part 2: Methane synchronization (68–31 ka BP) and the gas age-ice age difference. Climate of the Past Discussions, 10(4), 3537–3584. (doi:10.5194/cpd-10-3537-2014)
12. Mitchell, L. E., Buizert, C., Brook, E. J., Breton, D. J., Fegyveresi, J., Baggenstos, D., … Ahn, J. (2015). Observing and modeling the influence of layering on bubble trapping in polar firn. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 120(6), 2558–2574. (doi:10.1002/2014jd022766)
13. Orsi, A. J., Cornuelle, B. D., & Severinghaus, J. P. (2012). Little Ice Age cold interval in West Antarctica: Evidence from borehole temperature at the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) Divide. Geophysical Research Letters, 39(9), n/a–n/a. (doi:10.1029/2012gl051260)
14. Garland, J., Jones, T. R., Neuder, M., White, J. W., & Bradley, E. (2019). An information-theoretic approach to extracting climate signals from deep polar ice cores. Chaos: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Nonlinear Science, 29(10), 101105. (doi:10.1063/1.5127211)
15. Cole‐Dai, J., Ferris, D. G., Kennedy, J. A., Sigl, M., McConnell, J. R., Fudge, T. J., … Souney, J. M. (2021). Comprehensive Record of Volcanic Eruptions in the Holocene (11,000 years) From the WAIS Divide, Antarctica Ice Core. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 126(7). (doi:10.1029/2020jd032855)
16. Sigl, M., McConnell, J. R., Layman, L., Maselli, O., McGwire, K., Pasteris, D., … Kipfstuhl, S. (2013). A new bipolar ice core record of volcanism from WAIS Divide and NEEM and implications for climate forcing of the last 2000 years. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 118(3), 1151–1169. (doi:10.1029/2012jd018603)