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SYER: Symposium Trace species in environmental research

SYER 3: Session III

SYER 3.1: Invited Talk

Wednesday, March 12, 2008, 16:30–17:00, 3C

Tracers in polar ice cores — •Raimund Muscheler — Lund University

Ice cores provide unique records of past climate change. Some key findings about past climate come from ice core records since the precipitation is stored directly and remains relatively unaltered for thousands of years. In addition, the atmospheric composition in the past is stored in the bubbles enclosed in the ice. In many cases annual layers can be counted which provides accurate time scales that are indispensable for the understanding of past climate change.

This talk will give an overview about some of the tracers measured in ice cores and the results that could be obtained from them. Special emphasis will be given to cosmogenic radionculides which record past intensities of galactic cosmic rays reaching the Earth's atmosphere. Such records provide valuable information for different fields of Geosciences. Examples include solar activity reconstruction, solar influence on climate, geomagnetic dipole field reconstruction and carbon cycle changes.