Marc Sailer
University of Washington
Research Mentor: T.J. Fudge
Project: Modeling atmospheric gas diffusion in ice to help locate the best climate history
Hi, my name is Marc Sailer. I am a junior at the University of Washington studying Mathematics and this past summer I got the opportunity to work with CICOES as part of their internship program. I worked with T.J. Fudge to model how atmospheric gases diffuse in one million year old Antarctic ice in order to determine an optimal location for future ice core drilling sites to extend the current ice core climate record.
The ice core record provides us a crucial look into our past climate over the last 800,000 years and how it has evolved over time. A major goal for paleoclimatologists is to extend this record further back, potentially beyond one million years, to deepen our understanding of past climate and the major factors that control it. My project focused on determining where we should expect old ice to be present, as well as determining how well atmospheric gases, specifically CO2 and 𝛿O2/N2, are preserved in the ice.
By determining the accumulation rate, surface temperature, ice thickness, and geothermal flux and utilizing a 1D, steady state model run in MATLAB, I could compute how the ice’s temperature and age change with depth at a particular point. Using this data, I then ran two separate models which computed how the amplitude of CO2 and 𝛿O2/N2 dampens at certain ages of the ice. From these models, I determined that the parameters that most significantly affect gas diffusion in the ice and the age of the ice are accumulation rate and geothermal flux. Finally, with aerial radar measurements of ice thickness in a survey region between the South Pole and Dome A, I could compute where in this region we should expect old ice to be present as well as where the atmospheric gases inside should be most well-preserved.
From this experience, I was able to gain a host of professional and computational skills, which include how to communicate my research, critical problem solving, utilizing computational software like MATLAB, and how to connect with professionals in my area of study. I got to meet many fantastic people, including the folks in the Department of Earth and Space Sciences at UW, the amazing people with CICOES, and of course the wonderful interns I got to share this experience with. The CICOES summer internship was a phenomenal experience I am glad I got the opportunity to partake in.
Project Introduction
Research Poster
