90-year-old firn air from Styx glacier, East Antarctica

Firn is the upper part of the glacier that has not yet been completely changed to the ice. In this layer, firn air can move through the open pores and be pumped for sampling. We obtained firn air and ice cores from Styx glacier (73°51'95″ S, 163°41'217″ E, 1623m asl.), East Antarctica during 2014-2015. The Styx glacier is located near coast, and has an accumulation rate of 0.13 Mgm-2y-1 with a mean annual temperature of -31.7 °. We found that the lock-in depth (depth where gas diffusion starts to stop, "LID") is 52.4 m and bubble close-off depth (the depth to the snow-ice transition perfectly, "COD") is 65.1 m. Therefore lock-in zone (between LID and COD, "LIZ") is 52.4 - 65.1 m. Concentrations of greenhouse gases (CO2, CH4, n=13) in the firn air were analyzed at US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and 15N of N2 was measured at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO). We find that the firn air ages are up to about 90 years, the oldest firn air ages observed among coastal glaciers. In order to better understand physical properties and chemical composition, methane concentration and total air content of the closed bubbles in the LIZ (3 cm resolution, n=124) were analyzed by a wet extraction method at Seoul National University. The CH4 concentration and total air content show large variations in cm-scale depth intervals, and they are anti-correlated with each other. The CH4 concentration changes in a few cm corresponds to up to 40 years in CH4 age. We also applied Centre for Ice and Climate (CIC) 1-dimensional diffusion model and simulated greenhouse gas concentration profiles to quantitatively understand how the air moves in the Styx firn column. We hypothesize that density variations in the firn may increase thickness of LIZ and consequently increase of firn gas ages.