Ice core records have led to many important discoveries and have revolutionized climate science. Members of the U.S. ice coring community have led the efforts to retrieve and study ice cores yet continued U.S. scientific productivity in this area, including both knowledge generation and creation of the next generation of scientists, critically depends upon a mechanism for ensuring continuity and international cooperation in ice coring efforts, along with availability of appropriate drills, drilling expertise, and innovations in drilling technology. This award provides support for a Scientific Drilling Support Office (SDSO) that will work closely and cooperatively with an Ice Drilling Design and Operations Group (IDDOG). The intellectual merit of this project is embodied in the five closely linked goals of this project. These are to: 1) Provide community leadership in ice core science and drilling research planning in response to community input, 2) Provide scientific oversight of projects directed to the IDDOG, 3) Identify new technology needs and seek funding for their development, 4) Enhance communication and information exchange related to ice core science and ice core drilling technology as a service to the community, and 5) Coordinate information exchange between U.S. ice core research and drilling technology communities and international groups. The broader impacts of this project include organization and dissemination of results of science planning, and the retrieval, transformation to digital media, and dissemination of existing knowledge on aspects of ice drilling technology that have not previously been widely available, along with dissemination of knowledge of current issues and solutions for drilling technology. The SDSO will work in support of the U.S. cryospheric sciences and drilling communities to facilitate planning efforts and to be proactive in the planning and coordination that is necessary to form and execute continuously evolving ice core programs. The formation of an ongoing, continuous program will nurture the inclusion of students of all ages, races, and genders, and will help to launch graduate students into promising careers in climate science, and the resulting discoveries will help all citizens. Achieving the goals of this project will enable the U.S. ice coring research community to realize implementation of their internationally-coordinated ice coring goals, lead the world in ice coring science discoveries, nurture the education and development of the next generation of scientists and engineers, and help to communicate the importance of their discoveries to all.
The Ice Drilling Program Office (IDPO) was initially a collaborative effort between Dartmouth College, the University of Wisconsin (UW) and the University of New Hampshire. It was established to develop and maintain long- and short-term goals and plans for ice drilling, enhance communications and information exchange with interested scientists and the public, and oversee the Ice Drilling Design and Operations group (IDDO), an organization of engineers at UW with expertise in ice drilling who develop and provide appropriate drilling technology and expertise for ice coring and drilling research projects funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). Acting on recommendations from a review panel convened by NSF, Wisconsin ended its active participation in the IDPO collaboration at the end of May 2011. Dartmouth and UNH continue to run the Program Office. US scientific productivity in areas relying on ice cores and bore holes in ice depends upon a mechanism for ensuring community and international cooperation in ice drilling efforts and the availability of appropriate ice drilling equipment, ice drilling expertise, and innovations in ice drilling technologies. The formation of IDPO working hand-in-hand with IDDO has resulted in a solid base for an NSF-funded ice science program that will nurture the development and maintenance of scientists involved in climate science and other sciences to the benefit of not only the citizens of the United States but also citizens of the world. IDPO and Wisconsin’s participation in the collaboration has resulted in a better definition of goals and priorities of the ice science community and the resulting planning the use of IDDO resources for the support of science projects and the development of new ice drilling technologies. These goals, priorities, and plans are available for planning by NSF and the scientists themselves in the Long- Range Science Plan and the companion Long-Range Ice Drilling Technology Plan prepared by IDPO and IDDO and available to anyone interested at www.icedrill.org. The cooperative effort between IDPO (including IDPO-UW) and IDDO has led to the collection of many ice cores from Antarctica, Greenland, Alaska, and elsewhere that have yielded extensive new information about the Earth’s past and present climate. The most dramatic project has been the 5-year-long drilling through 2 miles of ice in Antarctica, thus acquiring a record of the ancient environment back to 65,000 years ago. Cores from this and many other drilling activities will provide research materials for graduate student thesis projects for years to come. Wisconsin’s position in IDPO was unique in that the IDPO-UW Principal Investigator (PI) was also the PI for IDDO. This was especially important and useful in the early years of the IDPO-IDDO organizational scheme because the Wisconsin PI, being an experienced and respected glaciologist, was able to facilitate the effective communication between the more scientifically oriented IDPO and the engineering and operations oriented IDDO. The unique perspective of the PI also facilitated the formation of the very expert IDDO Technical Advisory Board (TAB) to advise IDDO on the development and effective use of ice drilling technologies. The TAB includes several members from the international ice science and drilling community. The membership of the TAB in turn has facilitated the collaboration between IDPO-IDDO and the international ice drilling community and the petroleum and mining drilling industries.
