| Project Type: | Research_Project |
| Project Duration: | 05/01/2011 - 04/30/2013 |
| Funding Source: | SNSF , |
| Project Leader: | Prof. Margit Schwikowski Head Labor für Umweltchemie PSI OFLB/110 5232 Villigen PSI Phone: +41 (0)56 310 41 10 ; +41 (0) 56 310 25 05 FAX: +41 (0) 56 310 44 35 e-Mail: margit.schwikowski(at)psi.ch https://www.psi.ch/luc/laboratory-of-environmental-chemistry-luc |
| High Altitude |
| climatology, atmospheric physics, aeronomy | |
| hydrology, limnology, glaciology |
In order to place recent climate change in a longer term context the reconstruction of climatic variations on annual, interannual, and decadal time scales of the last 1000 years is a priority target in current climate research. This project aims to reconstruct different climate parameters using an ice core from a high-alpine glacier at a very continental site with low data coverage, the Altai mountain range in Central Asia.
In a previous project 4140 m asl, 48°39.338?N, 90°50.826?E) was selected as drilling site. During the one week spent on the glacier (3-10 July 2009) we extracted a 72 m ice core to bedrock and a 52 m parallel core. Ground penetrating radar data showed a thickness of about 70 m and smooth bedrock at the drilling site. The surface and bedrock geometry survey suggest low ice velocities and indicate that the selection of the drilling site was optimal. Ice temperatures measured in the borehole range from -12.6 to -13.8°C, implying that percolating melt water refreezes within the top layers. Thus the glaciochemical records should be well preserved. Tsambagarav range (one of the ice caps in the
Up to now we have analyzed the upper 31 m, corresponding to 20 m waterequivalent (weq) of the 72 m ice core for major ions and stable isotopes (d18Pb was used. Accumulation calculated from the different dating methods corresponds to 0.33 m weq/year. The low accumulation suggests that the ice core contains about one millennium of climatic information including the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age. 210H maximum and 3O), and a few sample for black carbon concentration. Preliminary dating was performed by annual layer counting of the ammonium and formate concentration, which show the strongest seasonal variation. In addition, nuclear dating of the 1963
The main objectives of this follow-up project are to complete the geochemical analysis of the lowest 41 m of the 72 m Tsambagarav ice core, to finalise the dating of the entire core, to reconstruct temperature, precipitation, black carbon concentration, and air pollution, and to provide key information about magnitude and spatial patterns of climate change in this area of Central Asia. This project is a collaborative effort between the Analytical Chemistry Group of the Laboratory of Radiochemistry and Environmental Chemistry, Paul Scherrer Institut and University of Bern, the Department of Geosciences of the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, and the Institut for Water and Environmental Problems SB RAS, Barnaul, Russia.
Source of Information: NF Import 2011
Last update: 5/23/16
Source of data: ProClim- Research InfoSystem (1993-2024)
Update the data of project: CH-200020_134564
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