Funding is provided to obtain new ice core accumulation records from Combatant Col, Mt. Waddington, in southwestern British Columbia (BC), Canada. Combatant Col is located significantly farther south than other existing ice core sites along the west coast of North America and variations in precipitation tend to be out of phase with those in Alaska and the Yukon.
Combatant Col sits at 3000 meters and contains more than 200 meters of ice. The net annual snow accumulation is ~2.5 meters/year and the mean annual temperature -5°C. A 65-meter core from the site shows that clear annual layering is preserved in the geochemistry and in dust and black carbon. The age of the ice near bedrock is estimated to be between 200 years and 1000 years old. It is anticipated that an annually-resolved record of layer thickness will be recovered at the site to allow for a record of snow accumulation covering the last 200-1000 years.
The Combatant Col record, in combination with other existing records of precipitation variability along the western margin of North America, will be used to develop an updated and improved reconstruction of precipitation variability in this region over the last 200-1000 years to address fundamental questions about Pacific decadal scale variability.
The broader impacts involve supporting an early career female investigator and strengthening international collaborations with researchers from institutions in Canada.
This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
