Detailed Glaciochemical Records from a Northern Antarctic Peninsula Site - Detroit Plateau
Abstract
The Detroit Plateau (DP) is located in the northern sector of the Antarctic Peninsula where glaciological and meteorological observations have revealed a remarkable warming trend over the last five decades (+0.56°C decade-1, Turner et al., 2005). The goal of this study is to reconstruct past temperature, precipitation, atmospheric circulation, and air mass chemistry over the Antarctic Peninsula. For this, we recovered a 133 m DP ice core (64°05'S, 59°39'W, 1937 m a.s.l) in 2007. Preliminary results from chemical and isotopic analysis demonstrated the DP site has a high annual net accumulation (~5 m of snow). The upper 98 meters of this core covers approximately 28 years (from early 1980s to 2007) and reveals pronounced increase in trace metals concentrations, attributed to heavy metals emissions to the atmosphere by human activities in South America, South Africa and Australia, especially related to non-ferrous metal mining and smelting. Moreover, the pollution by heavy metals is not limited to Pb and Cu, but also affects several other chemical elements concentrations such as As, U and Cs.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2011
- Bibcode:
- 2011AGUFMPP43B1822P
- Keywords:
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- 0724 CRYOSPHERE / Ice cores;
- 1065 GEOCHEMISTRY / Major and trace element geochemistry;
- 1616 GLOBAL CHANGE / Climate variability