Association of Polar Early Career Scientists

 

APECS is very happy to tell you about a resent scientific publication that resulted from a new collaboration that happened at an APECD event. During the IMPETUS 2008 Workshop in St. Petersburg, Russia, Francisco Fernandoy (Chile/Germany) and Marcus Tonelli (Brazil) met and instantly realized they had lots of research interests in common. This new collaboration has resulted in the publication of "Stable water isotopes of precipitation and firn cores from the northern Antarctic Peninsula region as a proxy for climate reconstruction" in the Cryosphere Discussion. These young researchers, as many of you, believe in sharing data and publications and have published this article under the Creative Commons Attribution, meaning it is free for all of you to download.  The abstract is below.

If any of you have, or know of people who have, developed collaborations because of APECS events, please let us know so we can share your efforts and show the importance of APECS opportunities.

Stable water isotopes of precipitation and firn cores from the northern Antarctic Peninsula region as a proxy for climate reconstruction


F. Fernandoy*, H. Meyer*, and M. Tonelli**
*Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association, Potsdam, Germany
**Oceanographic Institute, University of São Paulo, Brazil

Abstract. In order to investigate the climate variability in the north Antarctic Peninsula region, this paper focuses on the relationship between stable isotope content of precipitation and firn, and main meteorological variables (air temperature, relative humidity, sea surface temperature, and sea ice extent). Between 2008 and 2010, we collected precipitation samples and retrieved firn cores from several key sites in this region. We conclude that the deuterium excess oscillation represents a robust indicator of the meteorological variability on a seasonal to sub-seasonal scale. Low absolute deuterium excess values and the synchronous variation of both deuterium excess and air temperature imply that the evaporation of moisture occurs in the adjacent Southern Ocean. The δ18O–air temperature relationship is complicated and significant only at a (multi) seasonal scale. Backward trajectory calculations show that air-parcels arriving at the region during precipitation events predominantly originate at the South Pacific Ocean and Bellingshausen Sea. These investigations will be used as a calibration for on-going and future research in the area, suggesting that appropriate locations are located above 600 m a.s.l. We selected the Plateau Laclavere, Antarctic Peninsula as the most promising site for a deeper drilling campaign.

The Cryosphere Discuss., 5, 951-1001, 2011:  doi:10.5194/tcd-5-951-2011

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