This award is for support for a two year program of ice sheet modeling to contribute to the site selection for deep drilling at the inland site for the West Antarctic ice cores (WAISCORES) program. Ice flow calculations will be performed to provide time- scale and layer thickness estimates, and to identify source regions of deep ice. The research will focus on finding sites where the climate record should be best preserved throughout its long ice dynamics history. Using existing radar data and ice dynamical models sites will be identified that optimize age resolution and avoid potentially disturbed basal ice. The work will be closely coordinated with the ice coring community and other investigators who are trying to identify areas with good depositional environments and firn preservation. The project is a collaboration between the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics and the University of Washington Geophysics program.
