Late Holocene climate and environmental changes in the Eurasian Arctic - evidence from glacier and ground ice (Eurasian Arctic Ice 4k)

• Applicant: Dr. Thomas Opel
• Subject Area: Physical Geography
• Term: from 2012 to 2016
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 214131914

The Arctic as key region for the global climate system is more affected by ongoing climate change than most other regions. As meteorological time series from the Eurasian Arctic are short, climate archives are of particular importance for the assessment of the natural climate variability and its causes in the preindustrial Late Holocene. The proposed project aims at reconstructing Late Holocene climate and environmental changes based on the study of the Akademii Nauk ice core (Severnaya Zemlya) and ice wedges from the non-glaciated Siberian Arctic, mainly by means of stable-water isotopes. Whereas ice cores are known as one of the best climate archives, the analysis of ice wedges as mid-resolution archives is innovative. A new dating approach (using the radionuclide 10Be) will extend the robust ice-core age model. Taking ice-cap growth into account, this allows tracking the climate and environmental dynamics of the Western Eurasian Arctic in high resolution. The analysis of ice wedges at different study sites along a west-east transect will result in new regional winter climate records. The unique combination of ice-core and ice-wedge records will provide new insights into the seasonal, temporal and spatial dynamics of the Eurasian Arctic climate in the Late Holocene, into their causes and into the moisture generation and transport patterns between the varying impacts of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants