Greenland 2006 Journal

As a part of a project sponsored by the University of Kansas Center for the Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets (CReSIS), "High Resolution Radar Mapping of Ice Thickness and Near-Surface Layers in Northeast Greenland," researchers plan to measure the ice thickness and map near-surface and deep internal layers with ice-penetrating radars on the Flade Isblink ice cap near the northeast coast of Greenland. This will be done in conjunction with our Danish hosts (led by Professor Dorthe Dahl-Jensen of the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen), who will drill an ice core through the approximately 1600-foot-thick ice cap. It is so far not known whether the ice cap contains ice-age ice, or whether it melted away during the climatic optimum 8,000 to 4,000 years ago. The ice core will hopefully give information on the climate history of this sparsely investigated part of Greenland, the Polar Ocean and the sea ice.

Deployment in Greenland of the University of Kansas team is scheduled to last about a month, starting May 6. The team consists of Claude Laird (CReSIS Research Associate and Principal Investigator on the project) and Dennis Sundermeyer (CReSIS Technician). Other US researchers include Bruce Vaughn (Senior Scientist) and Jim White (Professor of Geological Sciences) at the University of Colorado. This effort is part of the US participation in the 2007-2008 International Polar Year (IPY) with the eventual goal of obtaining a deep ice core in northern Greenland. The project focuses on a region about which little is known, and we hope to obtain a climate record covering the last several thousand years and possibly ice from the last glacial and even the preceding interglacial era. Although this area has been mapped by airborne radar once before, it is not known exactly what will be found once higher resolution surface radars and an ice drill penetrate the dome.

Radar measurements are critical for extrapolating the internal structure and history of the ice beyond the core site for use in ice sheet models. The radar profiles will also (1) resolve ice sheet thickness and layer deformation, (2) expand on internal layer structure and ice flow properties and (3) look at topographic effects on accumulation. With the aid of the accumulation profiles, we hope to learn if the ice cap survived the early Holocene Climatic Optimum and why it is growing at a rate of about 50 centimeters per year when most of the Greenland ice sheet is either stable or losing mass.

For more information and field journals from Flade Isblink visit these web sites:

• University of Copenhagen Niels Bohr Institute


• Blog written by members of the Ice and Climate Group at the University of Copenhagen

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