Download ICE CORES and CLIMATE

ICE CORES and CLIMATE
Decoding Clues from the Past
to Inform Decisions for Our
Future
Glaciers and Ice Sheets:
Natural Archives of Past Climate
U.S. Ice Drilling Program
Understanding earth’s climate is
like reading a detective story
Ice cores are an important climate
forensics resource
U.S. Ice Drilling Program
Movie: Ancient Ice and Our
Planet’s Future
http://www.waisdivide.unh.edu/multimedia/
ancient-ice-and-our-planets-future.shtml
U.S. Ice Drilling Program
Key Messages
• Our climate is changing now
• Scientific evidence provides a basis for
decisions
• Burning fossil fuels is contributing to
current climate change; we must take
action today
U.S. Ice Drilling Program
Increasing Greenhouse Gases
in the Atmosphere
are causing warming of Earth’s average
temperature, changing our climate now
U.S. Ice Drilling Program
Earth is a system of systems
Climate changes will not be uniform.
Changes in one part of the system
will affect other parts
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Patterns of weather that persist
for a long time determine climate
Different, lasting patterns will change
our lives, either directly or indirectly
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Scientists use evidence to
figure out how today’s climate
compares to the past
U.S. Ice Drilling Program
The moving atmosphere carries
environmental evidence
to the polar ice sheets
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Searching for clues?
WAIS
Where to look for evidence depends on
the question to be answered
U.S. Ice Drilling Program
Evidence becomes archived
in ice sheets
Isotopes
Pollutants
Falling Snow
Sea salts
Dust
Surface Layer
Radioactive
fallout
Firn (old snow),
with trapped air
Firn to ice transition
60 to 110 m
CO2
CH4
Isotopes
Ice 2000 to 5000 m,
with bubbles of gas
Chemistry
Volcanic Tephra
U.S. Ice Drilling Program
Polar ice cores yield the highest
resolution natural archive of
evidence of past climate
U.S. Ice Drilling Program
Drilling technology helps scientists
retrieve cores from a variety of
depths
Shallow hand coring
The business end!
Coring many tens of
meters with a portable
drill
Large volume core
from Blue Ice Drill
DISC drill for coring
several miles deep
U.S. Ice Drilling Program
Movie: How Ice Core Drills Work
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXniTZBTBNo
U.S. Ice Drilling Program
Movie: Ice Core Processing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gESJSAXsL0Q
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Major discoveries from ice cores
1) Climate can change abruptly,
in less than 10 years!!
U.S. Ice Drilling Program
Major discoveries from ice cores
2) CO2 and temperature are closely linked
3) CO2 levels now are higher than evidence
from hundreds of thousands of years
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Movie: CO2 in the Ice Core Record
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHzADl-XID8
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Biggest rise in greenhouse gases
after the industrial revolution
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Global warming since the industrial
revolution is primarily due to
burning fossil fuels, and secondarily
to net land use change emissions
We have enough evidence to warrant
taking action. . .
U.S. Ice Drilling Program
Movie: It’s Us
http://youtu.be/-PrrTk6DqzE
U.S. Ice Drilling Program
Models are useful tools for
thinking about future impacts
U.S. Ice Drilling Program
Key Messages
• Our climate is changing now
• Scientific evidence provides a basis for
decisions, and ice core science
provides important information
• Burning fossil fuels is contributing to
current climate change; actions we take
now can help mitigate future impacts
U.S. Ice Drilling Program
Additional Resources
http://www.icedrill.org/index.shtml
http://climate-expeditions.org/
[email protected]
U.S. Ice Drilling Program