US Global Ice Core Research Program
West Antarctica and Beyond

3. Archives of Ice

The polar ice sheets and high altitude ice masses preserve in their coldest areas a highly detailed record of climatic conditions and atmospheric composition at and around the time of snow deposition (Appendix A). In some areas of Greenland and Antarctica it may be possible to retrieve ice up to one million years old. This will give access to a global change record spanning several complete glacial-interglacial cycles. This record will provide a crucial test for the various atmospheric and oceanic general circulation models that should be able to describe the different glacial and interglacial climates in the past as well as the transitions between them. The outcome of this test of the past determines how wen we can expect the models to predict future climate change. For these reasons ice core research has received highest priority both in US Antarctic research plans (US Research in Antarctica in 2000 A.D. and Beyond, Polar Research Board, 1986) and in global change research plans (Global Change in the Geosphere-Biosphere, Initial Priorities for an IGBP, US Committee for an International Geosphere-Biosphere Program, 1986).

The paleoenvironmental information stored in ice may be influenced by local conditions during snow deposition and firnification and/or by the flow history of the ice. Thus reconstruction of global climate in the past requires an array of well distributed ice cores, including deep, intermediate, and shallow cores from the Antarctic, the Arctic, and low-latitude sites. Because of the large variety of paleoenvironmental indicators present in the ice and the importance of obtaining precise information on the relative timing of changes in those indicators, ice cores should be analyzed for multiple parameters, usually by multiple investigators. 

The low-latitude records, though unable to match the great length and high resolution in the last glacial period of polar cores, are valuable because they complete the global coverage of past atmospheric and climatic changes. They will facilitate integration of data on the paleoenvironmentfrom ice cores with those from a host of other low-latitude studies on peat bogs, lake sediments, loess, and other terrestrial deposits. Most low-latitude ice masses are warming and retreating today which lends special urgency to low-latitude studies.

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