Funding for the Antarctic blue ice research

6.11.2008 14:15
The Research Council for Natural Sciences and Engineering of the Academy of Finland has granted 370 000 euros for a four-year research project led by research professor John Moore. The project will explore the Antarctic blue ice regions.

Research professor John Moore and his research team have examined Antarctic blue ice regions nine years. They have, for example, collected a three kilometres long, horizontal sample from the ice surface at Scharffenbergbotnen blue ice zone in Queen Maud Land in Antarctica . The sample covers the period from the last Ice Age to the present day, more than 10 000 years.

– The last time the climate changed as fast as it is changing now, was at the end of the last Ice Age. From the chemical analysis of the samples it has been possible to understand how elements of the climate behaved at the end of the last Ice Age, and even why it behaved so, says John Moore, the joint research professor of the University of Lapland ’s Arctic Centre and the University of Oulu .

The new research project, which starts at the beginning of 2009, continues to examine the Scharffenbergbotnen blue ice region.

– We will make models of how the region has changed over the last Ice Age to today. From the previous studies we know that that region of blue ice have grown at the same time as the continental glacier’s ice sheet has thinned by about a hundred metres. Now, we study in more detail how the change in the landscape affected the composition of the ice, Moore says.

The study will contribute to understanding the Earth’s climate.

– Through the modelling we get information of past climate conditions as well as are able to evaluate which parts of the climate system could change in the future. Models are also helpful when we think about the ways to adapt to climate change induced changes, Moore says.

More information:
Research Professor John Moore, phone +358 16 341 2757, +358 400 194 850, forename.lastname@ulapland.fi

UoL / Corporate Communications & Arctic Centre / SV