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3.2. ICE AND CLIMATE 137<br />

3.2 Ice and Climate<br />

Names of group members<br />

Isabel Bengel, diploma student<br />

Felix Jahn, diploma student<br />

Barbara May, diploma student<br />

Christine Offermann, diploma student<br />

Dipl.Phys. Markus Pettinger, PhD student<br />

Dipl.Phys. Martin Schock, PhD student<br />

Dr. Dietmar Wagenbach, head of group<br />

Overarching topic, main methods and specific objectives Among all paleo-archives, only<br />

non-temperated glaciers basically allow the reconstruction of climate as well as of environmental<br />

records. Appropriate ice core studies may thus allow to tackle the crucial problem about the mutual<br />

relationships between changes of climate and bio-geochemical cycles through a retrospective approach.<br />

Figure 3.14: Drilling down to bedrock at Colle Gnifetti (Monte Rosa 4500m a.s.l.) September 2005.<br />

View on the exposed situation of the drill camp near the ice-cliff (dome drilling tent at upper right<br />

rim). Picture: Olaf Eisen<br />

In this context, the ’Ice and Climate’ group concentrates on ice core investigations by deploying the<br />

following species, backed up by standard physical ice properties:<br />

• water-isotopomeres δ 18 O- δD (thermometry)<br />

• various particulate key species as mineral dust, major ions, organic carbon (bio-geochemical<br />

cycles),<br />

• natural radionuclides as terrestrial 210 Pb, cosmogenic 10 Be, 3 H, 36 Cl (solar variability)and on<br />

3 He, 4 He isotopes (basal layer dynamics).<br />

Apart from joint activities within polar ice core studies, emphasis is thereby on the independent<br />

exploration of non-temperated alpine glaciers. Such small scale drill sites are unique in supplementing<br />

high latitude ice core findings, though reliable atmospheric signals would be much more difficult<br />

to elucidate here (Preunkert et al., 2000). In addition to ice core analyses, deserving application<br />

of novel techniques and species (Ruth et al., 2003), also process-oriented field studies are regularly<br />

performed. These specific activities are aimed at understanding the transfer of the atmospheric signals<br />

into the glacier archive as well as at constraining their basic glaciological embedding conditions (as e.g.

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