Media Release: UM leads ambitious research project, with breakthrough discovery at Müller ice cap
Deepest ice core with oldest data ever found in Canada
UM researchers, leading an ambitious Canadian flagship project with other researchers from across Canada, Denmark and Australia have hit a bedrock milestone. They successfully reached the goal of drilling and retrieving a 613 metre deep ice core at Axel Heibergs Island, Nunavut, Canada. The deepest ice core ever pulled in Canada with thousands of years of information waiting to be discovered.
“It has logistically been a challenging project, so I am so excited to successfully retrieve the ice core from Müller,” says Dorthe Dahl-Jensen, Principal investigator of the project, and Canada Excellence Research Chair in Arctic Ice, Freshwater Marine Coupling, and Climate Change, University of Manitoba. Earlier this year, Jensen was also part of a team in Antarctica that successfully drilled into an ice core 2,800 metres in length, uncovering the oldest continuous record of Earth’s climate – at more than 1.2 million years old.
The Müller ice core will provide 10,000 years of knowledge on climate and sea ice from the Arctic Ocean. In addition, researchers will learn if the ice cap contains ice from the vast ice sheet covering North America during the last ice age as well as study it for mercury.
“The Müller project will help track the history and sources of mercury pollution in the Arctic, and improve projection on when the Arctic marine ecosystem might
recover from mercury pollution under the Minamata Convention’, says Feiyue Wang, Canada Research Chair in Arctic Environmental Chemistry, University of Manitoba.
The project uses novel methods to measure the ice and will educate a new generation of climate researchers and brings new drilling technology to Canada. The ice cores will be stored in the Canadian Ice Core Laboratory (CICL) at the University of Alberta.
In addition to the 613 metre deep ice core, University of Alberta researchers will examine three 70 metre ice cores, holding 200 years of information on our climate.
“Such a remote site, at the edge of the Arctic Ocean, will offer unprecedented insight into the long-range atmospheric transport of environmental contaminants to the far North – reconstructions of great importance both to science and to local communities,” says Alison Criscitiello, Director of CICL, University of Alberta.
Researchers from the University of British Columbia will investigate the greenhouse gases and mercury by pumping air out of the snow and firn to a depth of 60 metres.
“This is the first time such measurements have been done on the Canadian ice caps and the results are looking very exciting,” says University of British Columbia Polar Climate Scientist, Anais Orsi.
The knowledge gained from this project will have far reaching implications for Inuit communities in Nunavut and northern Canada by providing more accurate projections for climate change in those areas.
For more information and to schedule interviews, contact: Mediarelations@umanitoba.ca