Project Title

US-Korean collaboration to build a Ross-Amundsen Ice Core Array (RAICA) along the West Antarctic coastline

Summary

Event Number:
I-345-M

Program Director:
Dr. Kelly Brunt

ASC POC/Implementer:
Lesley Anderson / Jenny Cunningham

Principal Investigator(s)

Dr. Peter David Neff
pneff@umn.edu
University of Minnesota

Location

Supporting Stations: McMurdo Station
Research Locations: Martin Peninsula ice divide

Description

The Pacific coastline of West Antarctica is rapidly thinning and losing mass. Ice shelves critical for future stability of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet are retreating. Despite recent observed change caused by ice-ocean-atmosphere interactions perturbed by internal and forced climate processes, there remains a paucity of terrestrial climate records and mass balance observations along this ~1900km-long coastline. Ice rises (regions of grounded ice within ice shelves) are ideal ice-core sites that present opportunities to reconstruct coastal climate and environmental parameters dating back decades to millennia with annual resolution. By collecting a 150m ice divide core and shallow (10-15m) cores either side of the divide, the team aims to fill this observational gap along the Amundsen Sea coastline of West Antarctica. From these data, the team aims to improve understanding of fundamental atmosphere and ocean processes, background climate variability, long-term or emergent trends, and extreme events.

Field Season Overview

The PI will deploy to McMurdo and work under event number I-187-M before returning to New Zealand to board the Korean Polar Research Institute (KOPRI) vessel Araon. Some equipment needed for the project will also be sent to New Zealand from McMurdo, including communications equipment and generators. All field support will be provided by KOPRI.

Deploying Team Members