A03-2: Long-term scale Antarctic and global environmental interactions based on ice core analysis

Principal Investigator of Planned Research

  • KAWAMURA Kenji
    National Institute of Polar Research
    SOKENDAI; JAMSTEC

Research Outline

While there are concerns that accelerated melting and instability of the Antarctic ice sheet may become apparent with global warming, causing higher-than-expected sea-level rise, increased snowfall may temporarily limit ice sheet shrinkage. The time scale of the response of each element ranges from tens to tens of thousands of years for the ice sheet, from days to thousands of years for the oceans, from hours to years for the atmosphere, and the spatial scale ranges from kilometers to global. Thus, understanding the past in addition to the present is essential for a full understanding of Antarctic ice variability and its global effects on various interactions.

In the planned research, the Antarctic Dome Fuji ice core, the highest quality ice core in the world, will be analyzed using state-of-the-art methods to reconstruct climate and ice sheet variability forcing and response (e.g. Antarctic and Southern Ocean temperature and snow cover, ice sheet height, aerosols, greenhouse gases, sea ice and global water circulation) over the past few hundred thousand years at high temporal resolution. Through age-contrasts with global paleoenvironmental data, including mid- and low-latitudes and the Northern Hemisphere, this group aims to advance our understanding of the interaction between Antarctica and the global climate. Reconstructions linked to direct observations will also be made from analyses of recent snow cover, aerosols and microorganisms from Antarctic coastal ice cores. Our group will contribute to the creation of a new scientific discipline, Global Antarctic Studies, in collaboration with observational, past geological and modelling studies in the project.

Members

  • HORIUCHI Kazuho
    Hirosaki University
  • UEMURA Ryu
    Nagoya University
  • NAKAZAWA Fumio
    National Institute of Polar Research
    The Graduate University for Advansed Studies, SOKENDAI
  • HIRABAYASHI Motohiro
    National Institute of Polar Research
  • OYABU Ikumi
    National Institute of Polar Research
    The Graduate University for Advansed Studies, SOKENDAI
  • INOUE Ryo
    The Graduate University for Advansed Studies, SOKENDAI
  • SUZUKI Mai
    The Graduate University for Advansed Studies, SOKENDAI