Holocene sea-ice history: the association between deep-sea and continental ice core records

Metadata record for data from ASAC Project 2534 See the link below for public details on this project. The Holocene sea-ice project brings together for the first time, records from the Antarctic continent and deep sea sediments that will allow us to calibrate three sea-ice extent surrogates, validate their use in contrast to satellite observations and explore climatic influence on the physio-ecological environment over the last 10,000 years. Taken from the 2004-2005 Progress Report: Progress Objectives: Our objective is to instigate synthesis between deep sea and continental ice core records of Antarctic sea ice variability over the Holocene (last 10,000 yrs BP). The relevance of this novel evaluation is three-fold: - To appraise for the first time the relationships between proxy sea ice predictions beyond the instrumental record from the land and sea. - To assess variability differences and similarities from the various records that can then be used to probe the dynamics of the climate/environmental system in the East Antarctic sector. - To provide insights on the ecological response sea ice plays through the Holocene. Public summary of the season progress: Basic analysis of samples from Core E27-23 have been complete except for seven new samples from near the top of the core. This includes counts of diatoms, foraminifera, ice-rafted debris, volcanic glass. A greater variety of parameters is available than expected. Dramatic downhole changes represent oceanographic changes over last 25 000 years at the site including in evidence for carbonate dissolution and water temperature. Now needs statistical analysis of diatom data, extra radiocarbon dates and integration with data from Law Dome ice-core.