C53C-0336:
Initial Continuous Chemistry Results From The Roosevelt Island Ice Core (RICE)

Friday, 19 December 2014
Helle Astrid Kjær1, Paul Travis Vallelonga2, Marius Folden Simonsen2, Peter D Neff3, Nancy A.N. Bertler4, Anders Svensson2 and Dorthe Dahl-Jensen1, (1)Niels Bohr Institute - University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark, (2)Centre for Ice and Climate, Copenhagen, Denmark, (3)Antarctic Research Centre, Wellington, New Zealand, (4)Victoria University of Wellington, Antarctic Research Centre, Wellington, New Zealand
Abstract:
The Roosevelt Island ice core (79.36° S, -161.71° W) was drilled in 2011-13 at the top of the Roosevelt Island ice dome, a location surrounded by the Ross ice shelf. The RICE ice core provides a unique opportunity to look into the past evolution of the West Antarctic Ice sheet. Further the site has high accumulation; 0.26 m of ice equivalent is deposited annually allowing annual layer determination for many chemical parameters. The RICE core was drilled to bedrock and has a total length of 763 metres. Preliminary results derived from water isotopes suggest that the oldest ice reaches back to the Eemian, with the last glacial being compressed in the bottom 60 metres.

We present preliminary results from the RICE ice core including continuous measurements of acidity using an optical dye method, insoluble dust particles, conductivity and calcium. The core was analyzed at the New Zealand National Ice Core Research Facility at GNS Science in Wellington. The analytical set up used to determine climate proxies in the ice core was a modified version of the Copenhagen CFA system (Bigler et al., 2011). Key volcanic layers have been matched to those from the WAIS record (Sigl et al., 2013). A significant anti-correlation between acidity and calcium was seen in the Holocene part of the record. Due to the proximity to the ocean a large fraction of the calcium originates from sea salt and is in phase with total conductivity and sodium. In combination with the insoluble dust record, calcium has been apportioned into ocean-related and dust-related sources. Variability over the Holocene is presented and attributed to changing inputs of marine and dust aerosols.