Secrets from the past: Using Antarctic ice cores to unlock detailed information on climate variability over the last 2000 years, including a proxy for Queensland rainfall

The Antarctic ice sheet holds a wealth of information on past climate variability, locked away in successive layers buried by further snowfall.  In the coastal regions of Antarctica, snowfall rates can be high enough to hold layers of climate data on monthly, or better, time resolution. Further inland we can access ice perhaps up to 2 million years old.  This information is accessed by ice core drilling, and through analysis and calibration with the instrumental record, provides proxy climate records.  Australian ice core research has focussed on high resolution coastal ice core records, particularly from Law Dome, southeast of Casey station. Currently these records extent 2000 years, at seasonal resolution. We are now embarking to retrieve an ice core extending over 1 million years and I’ll outline our ambitious plans for this work.  This presentation will provide an overview of Australian Antarctic ice core work to date, with an emphasis on those climate records most relevant to Australia including proxy records of rainfall in Queensland.

Dr Curran is a research scientist with the Australian Antarctic Division’s Climate Processes and Change program and the ACE CRC’s cryosphere program. Dr Curran obtained his PhD from James Cook University in North Queensland. His PhD was focussed on measuring natural sulphur compounds from phytoplankton in seawater in the Great Barrier Reef and the Southern Ocean. In his current rule, Dr Curran leads the Hobart ice core group and has been involved in numerous research trips drilling ice cores in both Antarctica and Greenland. He is Science Leader for the Aurora Basin ice core project.