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Appendix 4

Summary Report from the GLOCHANT/PAGES Workshop on the ITASE Programme, Cambridge, U.K.
2-3 August, 1996

1. An Overview of ITASE - 200 Years of Past Antarctic Climate and Environmental Change

The proposed International Trans-Antarctic Scientific Expedition (ITASE), was endorsed by two of the Working Groups that met at the workshop of the SCAR Steering Committee for the IGBP in Bremerhaven in 1991. Consequently, it was identified as "expected to make a major contribution to two of the core projects in "The Role of the Antarctic in Global Change", those relating to the palaeoenvironmental record and ice-sheet mass balance. It was formally endorsed by the Working Group on Glaciology and approved by the Delegates as Recommendation Glaciology XXII-5, and was subsequently formally endorsed by the GoS/GLOCHANT at their 4th Annual meeting in April, 1996, at Madison, Wisconsin, USA. ITASE has also been formally approved and adopted by the IGBP PAGES core project under their Focus II on Antarctic Palaeoenvironments, it is also a contribution to the IGBP International Global Atmospheric Chemistry (IGAC) core project under their focus on Polar Air Snow Chemistry (PASC), and it links to SCAR-BIOTAS, SO-JGOFS and WCRP-CLIVAR. Some ITASE traverses have been completed by national programmes, including those of the Chinese, British and the Swedish/Norwegian programmes, since 1992.

The broad aim of ITASE is to establish how the modern atmospheric environment (climate and atmospheric composition) is represented in the upper layers of the Antarctic ice sheet. Primary emphasis is placed on the last ~200 years of the record. This time period was chosen for study because it is relatively simple to recover many ice cores covering this period, and to develop a spatially significant study. Even more importantly, this time period covers the onset of major anthropogenic involvement in the atmosphere, and the end of the Little Ice Age. A revised science and implementation plan for ITASE is in preparation. An international ITASE workshop was held in Cambridge, on the 2-3 August, 1996, prior to XXIV SCAR. The workshop was co-sponsored by PAGES, GLOCHANT and the US NSF, with substantial financial support from PAGES and US NSF. This report summarises the major resolutions, recommendations and field planning which were determined at the workshop.

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2. ITASE Objectives

Specific ITASE objectives are:

To determine the spatial variability of Antarctic climate (eg accumulation, air temperature, atmospheric circulation) over the last 200 yrs.

These variations include;

This extended climatic depiction for the major global atmospheric heat sink will be unrivalled for 10% of the earth's land surface.

To determine the environmental variability in Antarctica over the last 200 yrs.

Environmental proxies could include: sea ice variation, ocean productivity, anthropogenic impacts, and other, extra-Antarctic continental influences.

Because of the remoteness of the continent, Antarctica is an ideal location to monitor biogeochemical cycles and global scale changes.

In fulfilling these objectives ITASE will:

3. Proposed Ice Core Measurements

It was agreed that a standardised suite of measurements would be collected from surface snow samples and shallow ice cores on oversnow traverses. These ice core measurements are as follows:

Table 1 - Primary ITASE ice core properties
Accumulation rate TS*
Gamma-ray and beta detection TS*
Laser-light scattering TS*
Electrical conductivity (ECM) TS*
Dielectric TS*
Physical properties (size, shape, arrangement of grains, c-axis fabrics, depth-density analyses, melt layers, visible strata) TS*
Stable isotopes (dD, d18O and deuterium excess) TS*
Major chemistry (Ca, Mg, Na, NH4, K, Cl, SO4, NO3) TS*
Microparticles TS*
Other chemistry (F, I, Br, MSA, H2O2, HCHO) TS*
Cosmogenic isotopes (10Be, 36Cl, 26Al) S*
Temperature TS

Table 2 - Secondary ITASE ice core properties
Radionuclides *
Tephra *
Trace metals (Se, Pb, Hg, V, Mn)
Trace elements (Cs, Rb, Ba, Sr)
Isotopes (Nd, Sr, Pb)
Gases (CO2, CH4, N2O, CFCs, CO, methyl-halides)
Biological particles (pollen, diatoms)
Biogenic compounds (DMSO, DMSO2)
Organic acids

S = surface
TS = time-series
* = dating control

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4. ITASE Research Activities

Participants at the workshop determined that ITASE comprise four research phases, as follows:

5. An Overview of Proposed ITASE Fieldwork

The field planning of ITASE has been designed to build upon existing national programmes and their plans for oversnow traverses for the period 1996 to 2002. The majority of proposed traverse routes are already planned to establish and resupply the deep drilling programmes. In this manner ITASE plans to build upon traverses of 'opportunity' for the collection of shallow ice cores at intervals of 100 km along these routes.

6. Summary of the ITASE Cambridge Workshop Agreement

The following resolutions were agreed to by the national representatives and the SCAR Global Change Programme Coordinator.

1. ITASE to be coordinated from the GLOCHANT office in Hobart

2. ITASE Programme members comprises national representatives and the SCAR Global Change Programme Coordinator

3. Hobart office to coordinate the selection of ITASE Programme chair (rotating position)

4. Hobart office (with the help of members of the programme) to:

5. Hobart office to organise (with the help of programme members) and to develop a document on 'Guidelines for the standardisation of Ice Core sampling, analysis and storage methods'

6. ITASE co-sponsored by SCAR-GLOCHANT and PAGES, and forms a major contribution to the joint PAGES/CLIVAR initiative