The regional response of the high Arctic to past climate events is little known beyond the time period covered by the Greenland ice cores. However, in Spring 2009, a 3.6 million year long sediment record was successfully recovered from Lake El'gygytgyn, a 12km diameter meteor crater lake located 100km north of the Arctic Circle in Chukotka, NE Russia. This grant will continue studies of the paleoclimate record from the lake cores.
Analysis of the sedimentary record will greatly extend the known climate history. The team will integrate data analysis with climate modeling to test four hypotheses regarding the relationship between high Arctic climate and climate of other regions. First, no terrestrial Arctic record yet covers the mid-Brunhes transition in sufficient detail to determine whether the cooler interglacial periods observed in the first several 100ky cycles in the Antarctic are also found in the Arctic. Second, the amplitude of 40ky -duration glacial/interglacial cycles in the terrestrial Arctic during early Pleistocene is not known. Third, terrestrial Arctic temperatures during the Late Pliocene, a period of elevated atmospheric pCO2, are also unknown. Fourth, the team will investigate Arctic temperature response to cooling during Marine Isotope Stage 2. These results will help determine the sensitivity of the Arctic to atmospheric CO2 levels.
This grant will provide the scientific community with information about the magnitude of climate changes in the Arctic during the 100ky glacial cycles, the 40ky glacial cycles, and from prior to the initiation of Northern hemisphere glaciations. These data will allow direct comparison to the EPICA ice cores, long Asian loess, speleothem, and lake records, and comparable marine records and Global Climate [computer] Models.
Both the public and policy makers remain confused about issues relating to climate change. This work should help clarify the background of natural variations in Arctic climate, so that the modern changes can be seen in context.
Four PhD students and one post-doctoral fellow will receive science and mentoring support. In addition, the team will train STEM teachers by bringing five western Massachusetts teachers per summer to UMass for two weeks to gain hands-on laboratory and field experience and jointly develop curricula that address core elements of the Massachusetts Department of Education science standards. Because lakes and ponds are common across parts of the US, a portion of the teacher training will focus on lake/pond sediments with regard to the environmental and climate change they can document in their communities. This will be accomplished in collaboration with the middle school Earth science teacher who was at Lake El'gygytgyn in 2009 as the PolarTREC teacher.
