This collaborative proposal supports a project to perform stable isotope analyses of samples collected along the International Trans-Antarctic Scientific Expedition (ITASE) traverses which will begin during the 1999/2000 Antarctic field season. This work will focus on the spatial and temporal distribution of oxygen-18 and deuterium in West Antarctica (where data are particularly sparse) and the calibration of the isotope-climate relationship on a site-by-site basis, using instrumental and remote-sensing temperature histories. Specific objectives of this work which contribute to ITASE are: 1) to obtain detailed oxygen-18, deuterium and deuterium excess and stratigraphic histories in snowpits at most or all of the ITASE coring sites; 2) to provide direct calibration of the isotope-climate relationship at each site through a combination of direct (AWS) and indirect (passive microwave satellite) temperature measurements; 3) to obtain isotope profiles covering the last 200 years; and 4) to use the results to provide 200-year climate histories at high temporal and broad spatial resolution across West Antarctica that will allow testing of proposed relationships among isotopes, moisture source conditions, synoptic scale climatology, and site-specific meteorological parameters, and which will enhance our ability to interpret isotope records from older and deeper Antarctic ice cores.
