Proxy records: Ice Cores

Ice cores are one of the most effective methods of collecting proxy records for data about past climate records. This is due to the ability of them to capture gases during the time they freeze and then can later be extracted to measure concentrations of things such as Carbon dioxide and methane. The website below explains much of this and more, as well as listing some flaws with timing of ice core data. It also gives the different regions where ice cores are collected and explains how deep and good the regions are for ice core data, going from Antarctica to the Arctic.

Link to website HERE

Ice Cores

Ice cores are a useful tool in predicting the past climate change. One such reason for this is that when the layers of snow fall down they trap the dust, sea-salts, ash, gas bubbles and human pollutants of the past underneath and it freezes over. The important part is that it traps all of this so we can later examine the inside chemical makeup to figure out these concentrations at separate periods. The deeper you dig to retrieve an ice core the longer period of time you can see variation of weather periods and what the area was like in the past. An important piece of information gathered from these ice cores though is the water isotopes that are known to have relationships with temperature and are good predictors at determining past temperatures beyond our records. The ability of these ice cores to trap substances and chemicals is key in helping figure out climate change, and the fact that they are layered so well helps determine time periods and how these periods changed in climate. For example salt concentrations are associated with higher winds, similar to how the water isotopes are associated with temperatures.

Source: http://climatechange.umaine.edu/icecores/IceCore/Ice_Core_101.html

Ice cores and predicting past Climates

Ice cores to me seem to big a common data collection tool for how climate was in the past, especially for the Antarctic and Arctic. Theses cores are collected with a tool to extend down farther into ice structures to get a longer period of climates. These cores leave in them stored gases and other concentrations of sediments that can be used to explain the climate of that region a certain number of years ago. For example, if there is dust and sediment from volcanoes, then they can make a prediction that a volcano erupted a certain number of years in that region where the ice core was collected. Not only do they help tell the temperature, but they also can give us estimates of rainfall and snowfall during certain periods. All of these is good if we ever want to make a real change, because of any finding that shows we are causing the changes in climate that are far off from the norms of the past.

Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_%28climate%29
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/data-access/paleoclimatology-data/datasets/ice-core