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Variability of Arctic climate and sea ice over the past millennium: implications for ice cap mass balance |
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The goal of this research project is to drill and analyze two high-resolution ice cores from the Prince of Wales Icefield in Central Ellesmere Island, and use these to investigate the interactions between Arctic climate, sea ice, and ice cap mass balance over the past millennium. Understanding these interactions is of fundamental importance to predicting the response of the Arctic climate system to anthropogenic forcing over the next century, and assessing its' effects on traditional lifestyles of aboriginal peoples in the region, Arctic navigation and marine biological productivity. Ice cores can provide multi-proxy records of former climatic and oceanic conditions in the Arctic. The Prince of Wales Icefield on Ellesmere Island has the highest rate of snow accumulation in the Canadian high Arctic, so ice cores from this site permit the construction of precisely dated, sub-annually resolved proxy records of air temperature, summer melt, net accumulation on the ice cap, local and regional sea ice conditions and marine biological productivity. Pooling these records with those from all Arctic ice cores will provide a multi-site, multi-proxy based investigation of pan-Arctic variability and trends in these parameters. This project represents a major collaborative effort between three Canadian Universities, the National Glaciology Program (Geological Survey of Canada) and the University of Copenhagen and is helping to build a strong program of ice core research by Canadians within the Canadian Arctic. Please explore the links at the top of the page to find out more. Comments on the website are welcomed |
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