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Recommendations for a U.S. Ice Coring Program (1986)

Chapter: APPENDIX D: Status of Ice Core Storage Facility at State University of New York, Buffalo

« Previous: APPENDIX C: Laboratory Analysis of Ice Cores
Suggested Citation:"APPENDIX D: Status of Ice Core Storage Facility at State University of New York, Buffalo." National Research Council. 1986. Recommendations for a U.S. Ice Coring Program. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18404.
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Page 62
Suggested Citation:"APPENDIX D: Status of Ice Core Storage Facility at State University of New York, Buffalo." National Research Council. 1986. Recommendations for a U.S. Ice Coring Program. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18404.
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Page 63
Suggested Citation:"APPENDIX D: Status of Ice Core Storage Facility at State University of New York, Buffalo." National Research Council. 1986. Recommendations for a U.S. Ice Coring Program. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18404.
×
Page 64
Suggested Citation:"APPENDIX D: Status of Ice Core Storage Facility at State University of New York, Buffalo." National Research Council. 1986. Recommendations for a U.S. Ice Coring Program. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18404.
×
Page 65
Suggested Citation:"APPENDIX D: Status of Ice Core Storage Facility at State University of New York, Buffalo." National Research Council. 1986. Recommendations for a U.S. Ice Coring Program. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18404.
×
Page 66
Suggested Citation:"APPENDIX D: Status of Ice Core Storage Facility at State University of New York, Buffalo." National Research Council. 1986. Recommendations for a U.S. Ice Coring Program. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18404.
×
Page 67

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Appendix D Status of Ice Core Storage Facility at SUNY, Buffalo Abstracted from a report prepared by Prof. C. Langway, Jr. The facility is the responsible unit for processing, cataloging, and redistributing ice cores that are drilled in Antarctica, Greenland, and other polar and sub-polar regions. Samples remaining after preprogrammed studies are satisfied are redistributed to approved recipients, in accordance with the research objectives of the National science Foundation's (NSF) Division of Polar Programs (DPP) and their Core Sample Distribution Policy. Under this arrangement a commercial freezer facility stores most of the cores (80 percent), with some storage capacity used and located at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo, Department of Geological sciences (20 percent). A curator handles and arranges for redistribution and shipment of the ice cores. The objective of maintaining the Central Ice Core Storage Facility is to centralize and to maintain an accurate inventory of the ice cores and other polar samples recovered in DPP's general ice core drilling operations in both the northern and southern hemispheres and to make the portion of these samples not originally preprogrammed available to NSF-approved recipients at worldwide locations for various investigations. The facility operates under contract with DPP. The contract identifies the work to be performed and the costs required which are as follows: • to provide technical advice (but not transport costs) to assist in the coordination of ice core shipments from the field to a U.S. port-of-entry; • to provide technical advice (but not transport costs) to assist in safely transporting the frozen cargo from the port-of-entry to the storage facilities; 62

63 • to process, handle, catalog, and redistribute ice core samples on a national and international basis in accordance with the research objectives and policies of NSF/DPP; • to upgrade procedures, equipment, and materials used for handling and transport of ice core samples; • to arrange for and rent suitable commercial freezer space to store ice core samples; • to update, organize, and distribute an information sheet maintained for each ice core or parts thereof remaining; and • to maintain a graphical inventory of the ice cores that are available for redistribution under the general program. The listing below is of curator activities for the period November 1983 through July 1984. Ice core as follows: 11/30/83- 3/05/84 11/08/83- 01/03/84 11/08/83- 01/03/84 11/22/83 02/07/84 09/05/83 (and in progress) 12/26/83 01/04/84 sample redistribution during this period is Institution University of Rochester (Elmore) Oregon Graduate Center (Rasmussen) Oregon Graduate Center (Rasmussen) SUNY, Albany (Chylek) Nat'l Bureau of Standards (Currie) University of California (Craig) Core Sample Location C.C. 1963-66 Greenland C.C. 1961 Greenland Byrd 1968 Antarctica C.C. 1963-66 Greenland Dye 2, 1977 Greenland C.C. 1963-66 Greenland Study 36cl,10Be CH4, N20 CH4, N20 Elemental Carbon Composition of particles in surface snow samples Krypton 81 dating

64 (continued) Date 12/26/83 01/04/84 12/26/83 01/04/84 01/27/84 02/15/84 01/04/84 03/21/84 04/24/84 06/15/84 04/24/84 (and in progress) 04/25/84 (and in progress) 04/24/84 06/04/84 (and in progress) Institution University of Calif. (Craig) University of Calif. (Craig) University of Bern (Oeschger) University of Calgary (Giovinetto) University of Bern (Oeschger) University of Bern (Oeschger) University of Chicago (Smith) Oregon State University (LaViolette) New Mexico Institute of Mining and Tech. (Kyle) Location Dye 3, 1981 Greenland Byrd 1968 Antarctic Byrd 1968 Antarctic Crete 1974 Greenland Byrd 1968 Antarctic Dye 3, 1981 Greenland Milcent 1973 Greenland C.C. 1963-66 Dye 3, 1981 Greenland Byrd 1968 Antarctica Byrd 1968 Antarctica Core Sample Study CO^ concen- tration Acidity Concen- tration and »C H2 concen- tration XRF analysis of pollutants Ir, Ni, concen- tration of 17 gases Volcanic ash The current ice core archive contains 16 individual ice cores recovered from various geographical locations in Greenland and Antarctica. Detailed information is contained in the brochure "Ice Core Samples from Greenland and Antarctica," October, 1983. A total of nearly 10,000 meters of cylindrical aluminum foil reinforced containers encase the ice cores, which vary in diameter from 3 to 5-1/4 inches and which were recovered by various drilling methods. Various portions of all cores have been studied by a number of

65 investigators; consequently no core is currentlycontinuous over the original depth interval drilled. NSF/DPP has funded the Buffalo service facility under a peer-review contract arrangement since 1975/76. Funding has been adequate with full cost justification required and provided on an annual basis. Experience has showed that closer coordination and fuller understanding of the core storage facility's purpose and objectives might be better accomplished if management control were in the DPP science section. As an example, coordination of cold storage space, needs, projections, transport problems, redistribution, etc., would be better met if these requirements were discussed within the science section and integrated with anticipated ice core acquisition plans resulting from field drilling activities. Recommendations and approvals for ice core requests for scientific studies should be based on considerations established by scientists familiar with the total impact of the study. The studies should be approved based on scientific merit and judgment, especially if considerable resources are involved in sample preparation and analyses. In some cases, tens or hundreds of meters of ice samples that require weeks or months of sample preparation are requested and approved; in other cases single samples are requested and approved which require only a few minutes of preparation. Whether a large or small sample request is involved, considerable care and preparation is required for each sample shipment. These simple facts are often neither obvious nor necessarily reflected upon in the original sample requests. We are pleased to report that since the beginning, every frozen shipment that has been prepared or handled by this facility arrived safely at its destination. Since full science justification is required initially to obtain an ice core (a science plan) and a significant effort is subsequently involved to store, ship, and catalog the ice, an appropriate and rigorous scientific decision-making system should exist for the further use of core samples. The establishment of a committee that decides action on ice core sample requests might improve the overall situation. Finally, for the future Antarctic ice coring program, it would be prudent to consider ice core storage and limited laboratory science facilities for the proposed McMurdo laboratory.

Appendix E Motivation for CO2 Research Prepared by Dr. Stephen Schneider National Center for Atmospheric Research The United States currently has no capabilities to measure ice core CO2 content. Analysis of the carbon dioxide content in ice cores has been successfully carried out at Bern and at Grenoble although there are problems of the interpretation of the results. The basic idea that the CO2 content of trapped gases in ice cores reflect paleoatmospheric conditions is rather straightforward. However, the measuring techniques are difficult, and the interpretation of the measured data in terms of atmospheric CC>2 concentrations is complicated. From a scientific point of view, the amount of carbon dioxide in the air through time is of critical importance to the unraveling of cause and effect between suspected climatic forcing mechanisms and observed or proxy climatic records. Thus, it was with considerable relish that climate theorists greeted the news that trapped CO2 in ice cores had been analyzed by several groups (Berner and others, 1980; Delmas and others, 1980) Indeed, from Berner and others' (1980) first publication, climate modelers (Thompson and Schneider, 1981) plotted hypothetical temperature time series over the past 20,000 years based on assumed CO2 forcing alone. But further analysis of their work by the Swiss scientists caused them to discount their preliminary, the very high mid-Holocene value. They attribute the initial result to drilling fluid contamination. This case points out the need for close and continuous interaction between those responsible for the scientific objectives of ice drilling and those responsible for the technical or engineering issues. In this case, the engineering imperatives may require drilling fluids, but the scientific objectives cannot tolerate certain kinds of contamination. To reconcile such potential conflicts, a scientific oversight body could be consulted to help the technical specialists meet their needs without unduly degrading the 66

67 purpose of the venture in the first place, scientific inquiry. Perhaps such problems could be solved by advanced laboratory testing to determine which drilling fluids cause what kinds of contamination to the signals under study. From such testing, preferred fluids might be identifiable that would be adequate from both the perspective drillers and that of the scientists. Many such examples can be given—and many will arise—that argue for the need to have strong scientific goal-setting and ongoing oversight of the spectrum of ice coring activities. Because ice core CCK research already takes place at two European laboratories, the question of duplication of effort is relevant. In support of a U.S. CO^ laboratory it should be noted that duplication is not an issue because of the following: 1) The nature of interpretation (modeling of the results warrants multiple efforts by different groups). 2) The difficulties tied to the measuring techniques can be better evaluated if additional laboratories would play a role. 3) A total lack of U.S. expertise in ice core CO2 research will be detrimental to the large scale U.S. efforts in understanding climatic change. REFERENCES Berner, W., H. Oeschger, and B. Stauffer, 1980. Radiocarbon 22:227. Delmas, R. J., J. M. Ascencio, and M. Legrand. 1980. Nature 284:155. Thompson and Schneider, 1981. Carbon dioxide and climate: Ice and oceans. Nature 290:9-10.

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Ice and climate are inextricable linked. The major climate variations of the past "ice ages" are characterized by vast advances of ice over the land and sea. Glaciers and ice sheets affect our current climate. In the future, human modification climate, either purposeful or inadvertent, may cause major changes in the global ice volume and sea level. In addition to its active role in the climate system, ice also contains unique information about past climates. A clear reconstruction of climate history is an essential step toward understanding climate processes and testing theories that can predict future climate changes.

Polar ice sheets and some ice caps contain ice layered in an undisturbed, year-by-year sequence. The isotopic composition of the ice, the enclosed air, and trace constituents including particles and dissolved impurities provide information about the composition, temperature, and circulation of the atmosphere. In turn these may provide information about other conditions that affects the atmosphere. The recent ice layers contain a record of anthropogenic pollutants such as carbon dioxide, other greenhouse gases, and heavy metals. Ice cores retrieved from depths down to 2000 m in the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have revealed variations in these climatic indicators over the last 150,000 years.

Recommendations for a U.S. Ice Coring Program endorses these scientific priorities and strongly recommends that the United States:

  • Initiate a program of ice coring and analysis over a period of at least 10 years;
  • Obtain high resolution climatic time series, with wide geographical coverage over the last several thousand years by analyses of cores from various depths at many locations in both polar regions and nonpolar regions; and
  • Obtain long-period climatic time series of several hundred thousand years from both Polar Regions.

This report examines the current status of ice core research in the United States and recommends specific steps to implement an ice coring and analysis program.

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