scholarly journals Tracer transport in an isochronal ice-sheet model

2016 ◽  
Vol 63 (237) ◽  
pp. 22-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANDREAS BORN

ABSTRACTThe full history of ice sheet and climate interactions is recorded in the vertical profiles of geochemical tracers in polar ice sheets. Numerical simulations of these archives promise great advances both in the interpretation of these reconstructions and the validation of the models themselves. However, fundamental mathematical shortcomings of existing models subject tracers to spurious diffusion, thwarting straightforward solutions. Here, I propose a new vertical discretization for ice-sheet models that eliminates numerical diffusion entirely. Vertical motion through the model mesh is avoided by mimicking the real-world flow of ice as a thinning of underlying layers. A new layer is added to the surface at equidistant time intervals, isochronally, thus identifying each layer uniquely by its time of deposition and age. This new approach is implemented for a two-dimensional section through the summit of the Greenland ice sheet. The ability to directly compare simulations of vertical ice cores with reconstructed data is used to find optimal model parameters from a large ensemble of simulations. It is shown that because this tuning method uses information from all times included in the ice core, it constrains ice-sheet sensitivity more robustly than a realistic reproduction of the modern ice-sheet surface.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helle Astrid Kjær ◽  
Margaret Harlan ◽  
Paul Vallelonga ◽  
Anders Svensson ◽  
Thomas Blunier ◽  
...  

<div><span><span>The Dye-3 ice core was drilled to bedrock at the Southern part of the central Greenland ice sheet (65°11'N, 43°50'W) in 1979-1981. The southern location is characterized by high accumulation rates compared to more central locations of the ice sheet. Since its drilling, numerous analyses of the core have been performed, and the ice has since been in freezer storage both in the USA and in Denmark.</span></span></div><div><span>In October and November 2019, the remaining ice, two mostly complete sections covering the depths of 1753–1820m and 1865–1918m of the Dye-3 core, were melted during a continuous flow analysis (CFA) campaign at the Physics of Ice, Climate, and Earth (PICE) group at the University of Copenhagen. The data represents both Holocene, Younger Dryas and Glacial sections (GS 5 to 12).</span></div><div> </div><div><span><span>The measured data consist chemistry and impurities contained in the ice, isotopes, as well as analysis of methane and other atmospheric gases. </span></span></div><div><span><span>The chemistry measurements include NH</span></span><span><span><sub>4</sub></span></span><span><span><sup>+</sup></span></span><span><span>, Ca</span></span><span><span><sup>2+</sup></span></span><span><span>, and Na</span></span><span><span><sup>+</sup></span></span><span><span> ions, which besides being influenced by transport, provide information about forest fires, wind-blown dust, and sea ice, respectively, as well as acidity, which aids in the identification of volcanic events contained in the core. The quantity and grain size distribution of insoluble particles was analyzed by means of an Abakus laser particle counter.</span></span></div><div> </div><div><span>We compare the new high-resolution CFA record of dye3 with previous analysis and thus evaluate the progress made over 40 years. Further we compare overlapping time periods with other central Greenland ice cores and discuss spatial patterns in relation to the presented climate proxies.</span></div>


2005 ◽  
Vol 24 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 173-194 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicolas Lhomme ◽  
Garry K.C. Clarke ◽  
Shawn J. Marshall

2013 ◽  
Vol 54 (64) ◽  
pp. 44-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nanna B. Karlsson ◽  
Dorthe Dahl-Jensen ◽  
S. Prasad Gogineni ◽  
John D. Paden

Abstract Radio-echo sounding surveys over the Greenland ice sheet show clear, extensive internal layering, and comparisons with age–depth scales from deep ice cores allow for dating of the layering along the ice divide. We present one of the first attempts to extend the dated layers beyond the ice core drill sites by locating the depth of the Bølling–Allerød transition in >400 flight-lines using an automated fitting method. Results show that the transition is located in the upper one-third of the ice column in the central part of North Greenland, while the transition lowers towards the margin. This pattern mirrors the present surface accumulation, and also indicates that a substantial amount of pre-Holocene ice must be present in central North Greenland.


2001 ◽  
Vol 47 (159) ◽  
pp. 639-648 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edwin D. Waddington ◽  
John F. Bolzan ◽  
Richard B. Alley

AbstractLack of agreement between the deep portions of the Greenland Icecore Project (GRIP) and Greenland Ice Sheet Project II (GISP2) ice cores from central Greenland suggests that folds may disrupt annual layering, even near ice divides. We use a simple kinematic flow model to delineate regions where slope disturbances (“wrinkles”) introduced into the layering could overturn into recumbent folds, and where they would flatten, leaving the stratigraphic record intact. Wrinkles are likely to originate from flow disturbances caused internally by inhomogeneities and anisotropy in the ice rheological properties, rather than from residual surface structures (sastrugi), or from open folds associated with transient flow over bed topography. If wrinkles are preferentially created in anisotropic ice under divides, where the resolved shear stress in the easy-glide direction can be weak and variable, then the deep intact climate record at Dye 3 may result from its greater distance from the divide. Alternatively, the larger simple shear at Dye 3 may rapidly overturn wrinkles, so that they are not recognizable as folds. The ice-core record from Siple Dome may be intact over a greater fraction of its depth compared to the central Greenland records if its flat bedrock precludes fluctuations in the stress orientation near the divide.


2013 ◽  
Vol 753 ◽  
pp. 481-484 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tobias Binder ◽  
Ilka Weikusat ◽  
Johannes Freitag ◽  
Christoph S. Garbe ◽  
Dietmar Wagenbach ◽  
...  

Ice cores through an ice sheet can be regarded as a sample of a unique natural deformation experiment lasting up to a million years. Compared to other geological materials forming the earth‘s crust, the microstructure is directly accessible over the full depth. Controlled sublimation etching of polished ice sections reveals pores, air bubbles, grain boundaries and sub-grain boundaries at the surface. The microstructural features emanating at the surface are scanned. A dedicated method of digital image processing has been developed to extract and characterize the grain boundary networks. First preliminary results obtained from an ice core drilled through the Greenland ice sheet are presented. We discuss the role of small grains in grain size analysis and derive from the shape of grain boundaries the acting driving forces for grain boundary migration.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irene Malmierca-Vallet ◽  
Louise C. Sime ◽  
Paul J. Valdes ◽  
Julia C. Tindall

Abstract. Changes in the Greenland ice sheet (GIS) affect global sea level. Greenland stable water isotope (δ18O) records from ice cores offer information on past changes in the surface of the GIS. Here, we use the isotope-enabled HadCM3 climate model to simulate a set of Last Interglacial (LIG) idealised GIS surface elevation change scenarios focusing on GIS ice core sites. We investigate how δ18O depends on the magnitude and sign of GIS elevation change and evaluate how the response is altered by sea ice changes. We find that modifying GIS elevation induces changes in Northern Hemisphere atmospheric circulation, sea ice and precipitation patterns. These climate feedbacks lead to ice core-averaged isotopic lapse rates of 0.49 ‰ per 100 m for the lowered GIS states and 0.29 ‰ per 100 m for the enlarged GIS states. This is lower than the spatially derived Greenland lapse rates of 0.62–0.72 ‰ per 100 m. These results thus suggest non-linearities in the isotope-elevation relationship, and have consequences for the interpretation of past elevation and climate changes across Greenland. In particular, our results suggest that winter sea ice changes may significantly influence isotopic-elevation gradients: winter sea ice effect can decrease (increase) modelled core-averaged isotopic lapse rate values by about -19 % (and +28 %) for the lowered (enlarged) GIS states respectively. The largest influence of sea ice on δ18O changes is found in coastal regions like the Camp Century site.


2002 ◽  
Vol 35 ◽  
pp. 136-144 ◽  
Author(s):  
Niels Reeh ◽  
Hans Oerter ◽  
Henrik Højmark Thomsen

AbstractOld ice for palaeoenvironmental studies retrieved by deep core drilling in the central regions of the large ice sheets can also be retrieved from the ice-sheet margins. the δ18O content of the surface ice was studied at 15 different Greenland ice-margin locations. At some locations, two or more records were obtained along closely spaced parallel sampling profiles, showing good reproducibility of the records. We present ice-margin δ18O records reaching back to the Pleistocene. Many of the characteristic δ18O variations known from Greenland deep ice cores can be recognized, allowing an approximate time-scale to be established along the ice-margin records. A flowline model is used to determine the location on the ice sheet where the margin ice was originally deposited as snow. the Pleistocene–Holocene δ18O change at the deposition sites is determined by comparing the δ18O values in the ice-margin record to the present δ18O values of the surface snow at the deposition sites. on the northern slope of the Greenland ice sheet, the Pleistocene–Holocene δ18O change is about 10‰ in contrast to a change of 6–7‰ at locations near the central ice divide. This is in accordance with deep ice-core results. We conclude that δ18O records measured on ice from the Greenland ice-sheet margin provide useful information about past climate and dynamics of the ice sheet, and thus are important (and cheap) supplements to deep ice-core records.


1981 ◽  
Vol 27 (95) ◽  
pp. 3-9
Author(s):  
A. T. Wilson ◽  
C. H. Hendy

AbstractStudies of the chemical stratigraphy in the snow near Vostok station, which is near the centre of the East Antarctic ice sheet, show that sodium exhibits annual concentration differences of up to a factor of ten. Similar work on the 952 m Vostok ice core enabled accumulation rates along selected parts of the core to be determined. This in turn enables the core to be dated. The accumulation rate in this central region of the East Antarctic ice sheet for the last 50000 years has been determined and is presented. An interesting result is that the accumulation rate during the last glacial period is only half that in post-glacial times. Results from the bottom of the core provide some evidence of a past surge in the East Antarctic ice sheet.


1997 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 418-422 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric J. Steig

An important component of models of the cryosphere is the calculation of accumulation rates over polar ice sheets. As a first-order approximation, many models rely on the assumption that temperature is the main controlling factor for precipitation. However, compilation of available ice-core data, including a new core from Taylor Dome, East Antarctica, suggests that precipitation is significantly decoupled from temperature for a large proportion of both the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. While the estimated glacial-to-interglacial change in temperature does not differ greatly among ice cores from each ice sheet, the estimated change in accumulation rate varies by more than a factor of 2. A simple vapor-pressure parameterization gives reasonable estimates of accumulation in the ice-sheet interior, but this is not necessarily the case close to the ice-sheet margin, where synoptic weather systems are important.


2010 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 1209-1227 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. J. Peavoy ◽  
C. Franzke

Abstract. We present statistical methods to systematically determine climate regimes for the last glacial period using three temperature proxy records from Greenland: measurements of δ18O from the Greenland Ice Sheet Project 2 (GISP2), the Greenland Ice Core Project (GRIP) and the North Greenland Ice Core Project (NGRIP). By using Bayesian model comparison methods we find that, in two out of three data sets, a model with 3 states is very strongly supported. We interpret these states as corresponding to: a gradual cooling regime due to iceberg influx in the North Atlantic, sudden temperature decrease due to increased freshwater influx following ice sheet collapse and to the Dansgaard-Oeschger events associated with sudden rebound temperature increase after the thermohaline circulation recovers its full flux. We find that these models are far superior to those that differentiate between states based on absolute temperature differences only, which questions the appropriateness of defining stadial and interstadial climate states. We investigate the recurrence properties of these climate regimes and find that the only significant periodicity is within the Greenland Ice Sheet Project 2 data at 1450 years in agreement with previous studies.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document