Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Putting The West Antarctic Ice Sheet Into Context, George H. Denton, Brenda L. Hall

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

This award supports a project to develop new insights into the cause and pattern of events during the last glacial termination in South America and Antarctica. One emerging view is that a warming Southern Ocean (SO), driven by a chain of events initiated in the Northern Hemisphere (NH) and tied to the interhemispheric climate seesaw of the last termination, was the underlying mechanism that drove the West Antarctic ice sheet (WAIS) from its Late Glacial Maximum (LGM) position back to present-day grounding lines. This ocean thermal forcing would have impacted WAIS by accelerating basal melt rates on fringing floating ice …

Roosevelt Island Climate Evolution Project (Rice): Us Deep Ice Core Glaciochemistry Contribution (2011- 2014), Paul Andrew Mayewski, Karl J. Kreutz, Andrei V. Kurbatov

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

This award supports a project to analyze a deep ice core which will be drilled by a New Zealand research team at Roosevelt Island. The objectives are to process the ice core at very high resolution to (a) better understand phasing sequences in Arctic/Antarctic abrupt climate change, even at the level of individual storm events; (b) determine the impact of changes in the Westerlies and the Amundsen Sea Low on past/present/future climate change; (c) determine how sea ice extent has varied in the area; (d) compare the response of West Antarctica climate to other regions during glacial/interglacial cycles; and (e) …

Collaborative Research: Byrd Glacier Flow Dynamics, Gordon S. Hamilton

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

This award supports a project to understand the flow dynamics of large, fast-moving outlet glaciers that drain the East Antarctic Ice Sheet. The project includes an integrated field, remote sensing and modeling study of Byrd Glacier which is a major pathway for the discharge of mass from the East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS) to the ocean. Recent work has shown that the glacier can undergo short-lived but significant changes in flow speed in response to perturbations in its boundary conditions. Because outlet glacier speeds exert a major control on ice sheet mass balance and modulate the ice sheet contribution to …

Collaborative Research: Glacier-Ocean Coupling In A Large East Greenland Fjord, Gordon S. Hamilton

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

This award will support a study of glacier-fjord interactions in east Greenland. The 'Intellectual Merit' of the proposed study lies in the current understanding that the contribution of the Greenland Ice Sheet to sea level rise more than doubled in the last seven years, mostly because of a widespread and nearly simultaneous acceleration of many glaciers that terminate at tidewater in deep fjords. Understanding the causes of changes in glacier dynamics, and predicting their future trajectories is a topic of enormous scientific and societal importance. The Greenland fjords provide an intimate connection between the ice sheet and the ocean and, …

Promotingclimate Change Awareness And Adaptive Planning In Atlantic Fisheries Communities Using Dialogue-Based Participatory Vulnerability Analysis, Mapping, And Collaborative Systems Dynamic Modeling, Thomas Webler, Seth Tuler, Esperanza Stancioff, Elizabeth Fly

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

The goals for the proposed project are twofold:

• First, the project will improve understandings of how a changing climate will affect fishing communities’ abilities to maintain marine fisheries and the local economies historically dependent upon them.

• Second, the project will investigate the role of a structured dialogue and participatory modeling process to support decision makers in fishing communities addressing consequences, vulnerabilities, and adaptive strategies in a context of climate stressors.

Collaborative Research: Timing And Structure Of The Last Glacial Maximum And Termination In Southern Peru: Implications For The Role Of The Tropics In Climate Change, Brenda L. Hall

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

The role of the tropics in climate change has important implications for understanding both orbital-scale and abrupt climate variations. Yet our ability to assess tropical behavior during major climate events, such as the last glacial maximum (LGM), is limited by poor spatial coverage and insufficient control on sample ages. This project will address this problem by developing well-dated records of glacial fluctuations from the LGM through the termination and late-glacial period at Nevados Coropuna and Allinccapac in southern Peru and use these data in numerical simulations of glacier mass balance and local climate. These sites allow an examination of glacier …

Sensitivity Of The Antarctic Ice Sheet To Climate Change Over The Last Two Glacial/Interglacial Cycles, Brenda L. Hall, George H. Denton

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

This award supports a project to investigate the sensitivity of the Antarctic ice sheet (AIS) to global climate change over the last two Glacial/Interglacial cycles. The intellectual merit of the project is that despite its importance to Earth's climate system, we currently lack a full understanding of AIS sensitivity to global climate change. This project will reconstruct and precisely date the history of marine-based ice in the Ross Sea sector over the last two glacial/interglacial cycles, which will enable a better understanding of the potential driving mechanisms (i.e., sea-level rise, ice dynamics, ocean temperature variations) for ice fluctuations. This will …

Collaborative Research:Globec Pan-Regional Synthesis: Pacific Ocean Boundary Ecosystems: Response To Natural And Anthropogenic Climate Forcing, Andrew C. Thomas

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

Intellectual Merits: Large-scale decadal Pacific climate indices such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) have been linked to changes across multiple trophic levels of marine ecosystems along the eastern and western boundaries. Recent studies of the Northeast Pacific show that other independent climate modes are equally important in explaining changes in coastal ocean upwelling and transport dynamics ? the fundamental processes controlling regional nutrient fluxes and planktonic ecosystem dynamics. This suggests that the interplay of forcing functions associated with multiple large-scale climate modes must be considered to adequately diagnose the dynamics and mechanics underlying variations in regional ecosystems. With this …

Collaborative Research: St. Elias Erosion And Tectonics Project (Steep), Peter O. Koons, Phaedra Upton

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

1) Refinement of a regional scale model to include an approximation of the true 3D geometry of the orogen.

2) Develop a new local-scale model that incorporates topography, GPS data, and glacial erosion processes to refine the initial results.

3) Develop a modeling experiment to test the hypothesis that the rise and fall of ice masses during glacial cycles might influence where deformation is focused at any given time.

Colle Gnifetti Ice Core (Kcc) Progress Report (Year One)—Arcadia Ice Core Proposal: Initiatives On The Science Of The Human Past, Paul Mayewski

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

The Colle Gnifetti glacier of the Monta Rosa Massif on the Swiss-Italian border is perfectly situated to offer insight into the intersection of environment (climate) and culture (history of the economy, political stability, pollution, disease) in medieval Europe. While ice cores previously collected at Colle Gnifetti were sampled at state-of-the-art resolution for the time, it was nevertheless impossible to differentiate annual or finer layering in the period older than 1500 A.D. The 2013 Colle Gnifetti expedition thus sought to collect a new ice core that could be analyzed using the ultra-high-resolution laser based technology developed in the Climate Change Institute’s …

Forest - Atmosphere Interaction At Howland Forest, David Dail

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

The overall goal of the proposed work is to understand the various (and interacting) impacts of a changing climate on carbon cycling at the Howland AmeriFlux site, representative of an important component of the North American boreal forest. Our focus is on quantitatively partitioning respiration into aboveground and belowground processes and into autotrophic and heterotrophic processes to better constrain carbon cycle models. Whole-ecosystem flux measurements generally do a poor job of separating photosynthetic uptake from respiration and cannot constrain (or assign) respiration to the different sources within an ecosystem. This partitioning is difficult, but we will take advantage of new …

Collaborative Research: Subglacial Water Intrusion In Greenland, Gordon K. Oswald

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

The project's goals are:

• To analyse radio echo sounding data acquired over the Greenland Ice Sheet by the University of Kansas / CReSIS team with the objective of discriminating between frozen and thawed conditions at the bed of the ice sheet.
• To provide maps of the bed state, with the aim of making them available via the National Snow and Ice Data Centre.
• To support ice sheet modelling activities by providing information on the bed state, thus related to the temperature at the bed and the rheological conditions at the bed.
• To make available to educational establishments information on the …

Collaborative Research: Exploring A 2 Million + Year Ice Climate Archive-Allan Hills Blue Ice Area (2mbia), Andrei V. Kurbatov, Paul Andrew Mayewski

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

This award supports a project to generate an absolute timescale for the Allan Hills Blue Ice Area (BIA), and then to reconstruct details of past climate changes and greenhouse gas concentrations for certain time periods back to 2.5 Ma. Ice ages will be determined by applying emerging methods for absolute and relative dating of trapped air bubbles (based on Argon-40/Argon-38, delta-18O of O2, and the O2/N2 ratio). To demonstrate the potential of the Allan Hills BIAs as a paleoclimate archive trenches and ice cores will be collected for age intervals corresponding to 110-140 ka, 1 Ma, and 2.5 Ma. During …

Collaborative Research: Globec Pan-Regional Synthesis: End-To-End Energy Budgets In Us-Globec Regions, Andrew C. Thomas

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

The research addresses the overarching question: are marine food webs leading to fisheries controlled from the top-down, the bottom up, or a combination of the two? To address this question we will (1) compare end-to-end energy budgets of the 4 US-GLOBEC study regions in the context of top-down v. bottom-up forcing, (2) assess the skills of the regional models in capturing basic material fluxes, (3) extract diagnostics from the regional models that will be used to evaluate the effects of climate change and fishing pressure across GLOBEC regions and (4) develop quantitative methods to compare the diagnostics. The major successes …

Collaborative Research: Antarctic Climate Reconstruction Utilizing The Us Itase Ice Core Array (2009- 2012), Paul Mayewski, Kirk A. Maasch, Andrei V. Kurbatov

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

This award supports a project to reconstruct the past physical and chemical climate of Antarctica, with an emphasis on the region surrounding the Ross Sea Embayment, using >60 ice cores collected in this region by US ITASE and by Australian, Brazilian, Chilean, and New Zealand ITASE teams. The ice core records are annually resolved and exceptionally well dated, and will provide, through the analyses of stable isotopes, major soluble ions and for some trace elements, instrumentally calibrated proxies for past temperature, precipitation, atmospheric circulation, chemistry of the atmosphere, sea ice extent, and volcanic activity. These records will be used to …

The Anatomy Of Last Glacial Maximum (Lgm) Climate Change In The Southern Hemisphere Mid-Latitudes: Paleoecological Temperature Reconstructions From Terrestrial Archives, Marcus J. Vandergoes, Ann Dieffenbacher-Krall

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

The objective of this research is to test if leading hypotheses about drivers of global ice ages explain climate change in the Southern Hemisphere mid-latitudes. The research establishes the timing, magnitude, and structure of southern mid-latitude Last Glacial Maximum climate from two sites bordering the Southern Alps, New Zealand, by reconstructing temperature changes from continuous, isotopically dated, paleo-chironomid and pollen re-cords.

Hypotheses about what drives ice age climate change remain clouded with ambiguities because the timing and magnitude of maximum ice age cooling (Last Glacial Maximum, LGM) does not appear to match between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. Northern solar …

Ice Dynamics And Surface Glaciology Along Us Itase Traverse Routes In East Antarctica, Gordon Hamilton

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

This award supports a series of field measurements that will improve our understanding of the East Antarctic ice sheet. The objectives of this project are to take advantage of the overland traverse logistics framework provided by US ITASE and to collaborate with other US ITASE investigators to calculate rates of ice sheet thickness change (mass balance) on domes, along elevation contours and along flow lines in East Antarctica using precise global positioning system methods. In addition, the variability (both spatial and temporal) in snow accumulation rates will be assessed using shallow ice cores and ground-penetrating radar profiling, and will provide …

Collaborative Research: Norwegian-United States Ipy Scientific Traverse: Climate Variability And Glaciology In East Antarctica, Gordon S. Hamilton

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

This award supports a project of scientific investigations along two overland traverses in East Antarctica: one going from the Norwegian Troll Station (72deg. S, 2deg. E) to the United States South Pole Station (90deg. S, 0deg. E) in 2007-2008; and a return traverse starting at South Pole Station and ending at Troll Station by a different route in 2008-2009. The project will investigate climate change in East Antarctica, with the goals of understanding climate variability in Dronning Maud Land of East Antarctica on time scales of years to centuries and determining the surface and net mass balance of the ice …

Collaborative Research: Microparticle/Tephra Analysis Of The Wais Divide Ice Core, Karl J. Kreutz, Andrei V. Kurbatov, Mark Wells, Paul Andrew Mayewski

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

This award supports a project to perform continuous microparticle concentration and size distribution measurements (using coulter counter and state-of-the-art laser detector methods), analysis of biologically relevant trace elements associated with microparticles (Fe, Zn, Co, Cd, Cu), and tephra measurements on the WAIS Divide ice core. This initial three-year project includes analysis of ice core spanning the instrumental (~1850-present) to mid- Holocene (~5000 years BP) period, with sample resolution ranging from subannual to decadal. The intellectual merit of the project is that it will help in establishing the relationships among climate, atmospheric aerosols from terrestrial and volcanic sources, ocean biogeochemistry, and …

Collaborative Research: Asian Ice Core Array (Aica)--Reconstruction Of Past Physical And Chemical Climate Over Asia, Paul Mayewski, Karl J. Kreutz, Andrei V. Kurbatov

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

Funding is provided to help the researchers build on success using ice cores for understanding past physical and chemical climate change from Antarctica, Arctic, North Pacific and Asia by analyzing and interpreting a new array of Asian ice cores. The researchers plan to use five existing ice cores and collect one new ice core to enhance the reconstruction of environmental conditions over Asia.

The primary research questions for the Asian Ice Core Array (AICA) research include:

(1) Asian climate variability - How do major Asian circulation features (i.e., Asian monsoon, Westerlies, polar air masses, Siberian and Tibetan Highs) vary on …

Collaborative Research: Molluscan Radiocarbon As A Proxy For Upwelling In Holocene Peru, Daniel H. Sandweiss

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

Abstract: Under this award the PI will measure 14C in independently dated Peruvian mollusks from multiple time intervals to define long-term trends in upwelling variation. Upwelling is a defining factor of El Nino-southern oscillation (ENSO) in the eastern Pacific, particularly along the coast of Peru. Historical records of this phenomenon are limited and older proxy records in this region are few. The proposal will exploit the ventilation age difference between equatorial surface and deeper upwelled waters. The detection of El Nino events will be made by screening for shell increment alteration and by sequential d18O analysis. The simultaneous excursions in …

Determining Patterns Of Abrupt Climate Change During The Last Glacial-Interglacial Transition (Lgit) In The Southern Hemisphere, Marcus J. Vandergoes, Ann Dieffenbacher-Krall

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

This proposal will fund the development of a continuous, isotopically-dated paleochironomid and pollen record of deglacial climate fluctuations from lake sediments located in climatically sensitive sites along the Southern Alps, New Zealand. Detailed investigations will be carried out for the Last Glacial-Interglacial Transition (LGIT) at Boundary Stream Tarn, Quagmire Tarn, and Kettlehole Bog to establish the sequence of deglacial climate events and to facilitate comparisons with other well-dated northern and southern records.

The primary scientific objectives of the project are to determine: 1) the pattern and magnitude of past climate change; 2) whether changes recorded show an in-phase or out-of-phase …

Physical Properties Of The Us Itase Firn And Ice Cores From South Pole To Taylor Dome, Debra A. Meese, Ian Baker

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

This award supports a project for physical properties research on snow pits and firn/ice cores with specific objectives that include stratigraphic analysis including determination of accumulation rates, annual layers, depth hoar, ice and wind crusts and rates of grain growth with depth. Studies of firn densification rates and how these parameters relate to the meteorology and climatology over the last 200 years of snow accumulation in Antarctica will also be investigated. The project will also determine the seasonality of accumulation by co-registration of stratigraphy and chemistry and determination of chemical species at the grain boundaries, how these may change with …

U.S.-Globec: Nep Phase Iiib-Cgoa: A Synthesis Of Climate-Forced Variability On Mesoscale Structure In The Cgoa With Direct Comparisons To The Ccs, Andrew C. Thomas

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

A variety of extreme climate events occurred during the period of US GLOBEC monitoring and process studies in the NEP (1997-2004). These provide an unprecedented opportunity to examine a range of climate variability experienced by the coastal Gulf of Alaska (CGOA). By relating these climate events to regional physical and biological observations, using multiple and diverse data sources (GLOBEC observations, historical data sets and reanalyses, satellites, models), we can determine how these events affect mesoscale ocean variability in the CGOA and its related target populations (the primary goal of the NEP program). We can then directly compare these responses to …

Us Itase Glaciochemistry Phase 2: East Antarctica, Paul Mayewski

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

This award supports a project to undertake glaciochemical investigations of the Ross Sea Embayment Drainage System, and portions of Wilkes Land for purposes of understanding annual to multi-centennial scale climate variability. The glaciochemical data that will be collected will contribute to the U.S. component of the International Trans-Antarctic Scientific Expedition and will occur over a period of two years on an overland traverse that will begin at Taylor Dome in Northern Victoria Land and travel to the South Pole. This data, along with similar information collected on a series of earlier traverse in West Antarctica, will contribute to providing an …

Collaborative Research: Drillsite Reconnaissance And Snow Chemistry Survey In Denali National Park, Karl J. Kreutz

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

This is a collaborative proposal by Principal Investigators from the Universities of New Hampshire (UNH) and Maine. Understanding the mechanisms responsible for interannual to decadal-scale climate variability during the late Holocene remains a fundamental research problem in Arctic science. The Principal Investigator's will: 1) perform a detailed reconnaissance to identify suitable locations in Denali National Park (DNP) from which to recover and develop high resolution ice core records; and (2) develop detailed snow chemistry records that document the spatial (both horizontally and vertically) and seasonal variation of major ion and trace element deposition in the region. This will be the …

Collaborative Research: Abandoned Elephant Seal Colonies In Antarctica: Integration Of Genetic, Isotopic, And Geologic Approaches Toward Understanding Holocene Environmental Change, Brenda L. Hall

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

During previous NSF-sponsored research, the PI's discovered that southern elephant seal colonies once existed along the Victoria Land coast (VLC) of Antarctica, a region where they are no longer observed. Molted seal skin and hair occur along 300 km of coastline, more than 1000 km from any extant colony. The last record of a seal at a former colony site is at ~A.D. 1600. Because abandonment occurred prior to subantarctic sealing, disappearance of the VLC colony probably was due to environmental factors, possibly cooling and encroachment of land-fast, perennial sea ice that made access to haul-out sites difficult. The record …

Us-Globec Nep Phase Iiia-Ccs: Large-Scale Influences On Mesoscale Structure In The Ccs, A Synthesis Of Climate-Forced Variability In Coastal Ecosystems, Andrew C. Thomas

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

A variety of extreme climate events occurred during the period of the US GLOBEC NEP monitoring and process studies in the California Current System (CCS) (1997-2003). These provided an unprecedented opportunity to examine a wide range of climate variability experienced by the CCS and its ecosystems. By relating these climate events to regional physical and biological observations, using multiple and diverse data sources (GLOBEC and other recent observations, historical datasets, satellites, circulation and physical-biological models), the investigators will determine how these events affect mesoscale ocean variability and target populations in the CCS. The overarching goal of this project is to …

(Rcn) Terrestrial Ecosystem Response To Atmospheric And Climatic Change, Lindsey E. Rustad

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

Future changes in the global carbon balance and associated feedbacks to climate will depend on ecosystem responses to multiple, interacting drivers of global change, such as elevated CO2, temperature, N deposition and changes in the amount and timing of precipitation. Efforts to predict these interactions with modeling approaches have been limited by a lack of relevant experimental data, as well as the absence of mechanisms for rapid communication between modelers and experimentalists. This grant will establish a network of global change scientists in an initiative on Terrestrial Ecosystem Responses to Atmospheric and Climatic Change (TERACC), with the aim to (1) …

U.S.-Korea Cooperative Research: Carbon Monoxide As A Substrate For Microbial Maintenance, Gary M. King

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

Bacteria play an important role in the global budget of carbon monoxide (CO). Largely unknown bacterial populations in soils and the water column of aquatic systems oxidize hundreds of teragrams per year, or about 10%-20% of the estimated annual flux to the atmosphere. In spite of their biogeochemical significance, relatively little is known about the identity of CO-oxidizing populations active in situ, their phylogenic and physiological diversity or the importance of CO as substrate for their basic metabolic needs. of CO oxidizers. It is clear that CO at high concentrations (> 1000 ppm) can serve as a sole source of …