Ice Core Drilling in West Antarctica 2010
Meet the Team
Researcher - Heidi Roop
University of New Hampshire/ Desert Research Institute
Seattle
, Washington
United States
Heidi Roop grew up exploring the formerly glaciated landscape of Wisconsin, and today continues her love for studying glaciers and climate variability through research in Antarctica and alpine regions around the world. Spending the austral summer of 2010-2011 in Antarctica, it will be her second season working as a part of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) Divide project. When she is not in Antarctica, she works throughout the Sierra Nevada studying climate variability and hydrology for the United States Geological Survey.
Journals
Project Information
West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) Divide Ice Core Drilling Project
West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) Divide, Antarctica
15 November 2010
15 February 2011
Where are They?
The research team will be at the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) drill site, in western Antarctica. The WAIS divide sits on top of 3,485 meters of ice, thicker than 9 Empire State Buildings stacked on top of one another! The WAIS is classified as a marine-based ice sheet, meaning that its bed lies well below sea level and its edges flow into floating ice shelves. The WAIS is bounded by the Ross Ice Shelf, the Ronne Ice Shelf, and outlet glaciers that drain into the Amundsen Sea.
What are they Doing?
Using a large hollow drill, the WAIS Divide Ice Core Drilling team aims to collect a 3,500-meter-long ice core, or sample of ice, from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Because of the weight of the overlying snowpack, snow that falls and accumulates on ice sheets re-crystallizes and forms annual layers over time. The ice core recovered during the project will have annual resolution, or distinct yearly markings, for the past 40,000 years!
In ice sheets, the compression of snow traps small bubbles of air in the layers of ice. By measuring concentrations of greenhouse gasses and non-greenhouse gasses and their isotopes trapped within bubbles in the ice, the team aims to develop climate records dating back to 100,000 years before present.
This ice core will provide the first Southern Hemisphere climate and greenhouse gas records of comparable time, resolution, and duration to ice cores previously recovered in Greenland. The ice core will enable scientists to make detailed comparisons of greenhouse gas concentrations and environmental conditions between the Northern and Southern hemispheres with a greater level of detail than previously possible. The biology of the ice collected will also be investigated.
Resources
| Title | Date | About | Type |
|---|---|---|---|
| Heidi Roop and Ice Core Drilling on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet | 21 January 2011 | PolarConnect event with Heidi Roop who is working with an Ice Core Drilling team on the West... | Event |
| Heidi Roop and Ice Core Drilling on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet | 7 January 2011 | PolarConnect event with Heidi Roop and the Ice Core Drilling team on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet... | Event |
| Heidi Roop and Ice Core Drilling on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet | 16 December 2010 | This PolarConnect event was held on 16 December 2010 with Heidi Roop who is working with an ice... | Event |
| WAIS Divide, Antarctica with Heidi Roop and the Ice Coring Team | 11 January 2010 | Live from IPY! event with researcher Heidi Roop and other members of the ice coring team at WAIS... | Event |
