Global Change Master Directory (GCMD)

Data Sets

Services / Tools

Ancillary Descriptions

Are you using a browser that doesn't support JavaScript or have you disabled JavaScript?

If you have disabled JavaScript, you must re-enable JavaScript to use this page.
Or you can view this record using the Text Only Format.

New Zealand International Transantarctic Scientific Expedition (NZ ITASE) - Climate variability measured from ice cores taken along the Victoria Land Coast

Entry ID: K049_1999_2008_NZ_1

[ Get Data ]
[ Update this Record ]

This data set description is a member of a collection.
Click to see members of this collection.

Summary

Abstract: The climate of the Victoria Land Coast is created by the interacting influences of the Dry Valleys, East Antarctic Ice Sheet and the Ross Sea. Slight changes can significantly alter local weather patterns and as such a climate record of the area provides ideal opportunities to study rapid, high frequency climatic variations. International polar ice coring programmes (e.g. GISP and Vostok) have ... provided powerful new insights into Earth's climate back 400,000 years, from the diverse inventory of atmospheric information stored both within the ice and trapped air bubbles. To understand and predict the local response to anthropogenically induced global warming seen in these "global" ice cores, the focus of ice core research in Antarctica is moving to the acquisition of high-resolution regional paleoclimatic archives of annual-scale that overlap with and extend the instrumental records of the last 40 years back several thousand years. This has been a key motivation behind the US-led International Transantarctic Scientific Expedition (ITASE) of which New Zealand is a member.

The New Zealand project's objective is to recover a series of ice cores from glaciers along a 14-degree latitudinal transect of the climatically sensitive Victoria Land coastline and thereby directly contribute a critical dataset to ITASE. The NZ ITASE sites (including two sites at Victoria Lower Glacier, Baldwin Glacier, Wilson Piedmont Glacier, Polar Plateau, Evans Piedmont Glacier, Mt Erebus Saddle, Whitehall Glacier, Skinner Saddle and Gawn Ice Piedmont Glacier with future sites planned at Beardmore Glacier, Roosevelt Island, and coastal sites in West Antarctica) have been chosen to capture and quantify the steep climate gradients from the Scott Coast to the Polar Plateau, the local climate system of the McMurdo Dry Valleys, and the effect of altitude within the Transantarctic Mountains. Coastal sites are especially climate sensitive and show potential to archive local, rapid climate change events that are subdued or lost in the 'global' inland ice core records.

Investigation and datasets include: GPR/GPS surveying to map bedrock topography and internal glacial structure and glacier topography, firn and ice cores to quantify the variability of climate record with analysis of temperature, crystal structure, crystal geometry, density of the snow, melt, dust/tephra occurrence, gas content, porosity, gas bubble size and geometry, snow profiles were analysed for ion content, isotopic ratios, dust content, beta radioactivity, chemical properties and mineralogy to transfer functions with the meterological record, borehole temperature and light penetration, submergence velocity measurements to analyse the mass balance of the glaciers, meterological data and ablation measurements.

Related URL

Link: GET DATA

Description: The IGS global system of satellite tracking stations, Data Centers, and Analysis Centers puts high-quality GPS data and data products on line in near real time to meet the objectives of a wide range of scientific and engineering applications and studies.

Geographic Coverage

(Click for Interactive Map)

Spatial coordinates

	N: -72.9	S: -77.72	E: 167.67	W: 159.87
Min Altitude: 0 Max Altitude: 2400
Min Depth: 0 Max Depth: 200

Temporal Coverage

Start Date: 1999-11-24

Paleo Temporal Coverage

Chrono Unit:

PHANEROZOIC > CENOZOIC > QUATERNARY > HOLOCENE

Location Keywords

CONTINENT > ANTARCTICA > MT EREBUS SADDLE

CONTINENT > ANTARCTICA > VICTORIA LAND COAST

Science Keywords

CRYOSPHERE > GLACIERS/ICE SHEETS > GLACIERS

PALEOCLIMATE > ICE CORE RECORDS

ISO Topic Category

IMAGERY/BASE MAPS/EARTH COVER

Platform

GMS-4 > Geostationary Meteorological Satellite-4

GOES > NOAA Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites

Instrument

VISSR > Visible and Infrared Spin Scan Radiometer

Project

EOSDIS > Earth Observing System Data Information System

ESIP > Earth Science Information Partners Program

CWIC > CEOS WGISS Integrated Catalog

Ancillary Keywords

EOSDIS

LBA

Data Set Progress

IN WORK

Originating Center

MSFC/GHRC

Data Center

Global Hydrology Resource Center, Marshall Space Flight Center, NASA

Data Center URL: http://ghrc.nsstc.nasa.gov/
Dataset ID: globalir

Data Center Personnel
Name: GHRC USER SERVICES OFFICE Phone: 256-961-7932 Fax: 256-961-7859 Email: ghrcdaac at itsc.uah.edu Contact Address: GHRC User Services Office Global Hydrology Resource Center (GHRC) 320 Sparkman Drive City: Huntsville Province or State: AL Postal Code: 35805 Country: USA

Distribution

Distribution Media: FTP

Distribution Format: native, tar, compressed

Fees: none

Personnel

GHRC USER SERVICES OFFICE

Role: DIF AUTHOR

Phone: 256-961-7932

Fax: 256-961-7859

Email: ghrcdaac at itsc.uah.edu

Contact Address:

GHRC User Services Office

Global Hydrology Resource Center (GHRC)

320 Sparkman Drive

City: Huntsville

Province or State: AL

Postal Code: 35805

Country: USA

RICHARD BLAKESLEE

Role: INVESTIGATOR

Phone: 256-961-7962

Fax: 256-961-7348

Email: Rich.Blakeslee at nasa.gov

Contact Address:

Global Hydrology and Climate Center

320 Sparkman Drive

City: Huntsville

Province or State: AL

Postal Code: 35805

Country: USA

PAUL MEYER

Role: TECHNICAL CONTACT

Phone: 256-922-5723

Email: paul.meyer at nasa.gov

Contact Address:

Global Hydrology and Climate Center

ES44

NASA Marshall Space Flight Center

320 Sparkman Drive

City: Huntsville

Province or State: AL

Postal Code: 35806

Country: USA

Extended Metadata Properties

(Click to view more)

Creation and Review Dates

Last DIF Revision Date: 2010-11-09

Reformat as FGDC document

View Text Only Format

[ Update this Record ]