Flade Isblink, a small ice cap is located in northeastern Greenland - the age of the ice is unknown It is estimated to be as old as the last glacial period and may have been greatly impacted by sea ice extent and thus, it may contain records of sea ice many thousands of years old that can be used to place the observations of the past few decades into context. The Danish ice core group at the University of Copenhagen will drill an ice core at Flade Isblink in summer 2006. If the United States is to be represented in this International Polar Year project, quick action must be taken to join the group, as plans are already underway for fieldwork next summer. This time urgency, combined with the exploratory nature of the measurements, meets the Small Grant for Exploratory Research (SGER) requirements. The Colorado contribution will be to measure deuterium excess which may be sensitive to the ocean surface conditions at the moisture source areas, and thus could be good indicators of sea ice extents in the oceans around northeast Greenland. Members of the Flade Isblink team will measure other potential sea ice indicators, such as sea salt and MSA. The analyses should make a significant contribution for reconstructing sea ice extents and to the basic climate record at Flade Isblink. Little is known about the climate records contained in the ice in this region and it is expected that this region of Greenland is more sensitive to high-latitude Arctic climate. Thus, Flade Isblink should contribute a unique climate record. Funds are requested to cover travel to the field and a modest amount for stable isotope analyses on ice. Support for the 2006 field season in the form of C130 flights is also requested.
Broader Impacts Climate change looms as one of the great challenges for the future, and policy makers need better input on this issue than science can give them today. The results of this research are expected to contribute to more informed decision-making. This is also a natural addition to existing undergraduate and graduate courses in the environment, and the investigators will use the existing NSF-IGERT program at Colorado to take what is learned from this proposal and feed it into undergraduate curricula.
