US - International Trans Antarctic Scientific Expedition

From its original formulation in 1990, the International Trans Antarctic Scientific Expedition (ITASE) has had as its primary aim the collection and interpretation of a continent wide array of environmental parameters assembled through the coordinated efforts of scientists from 20 nations under an initiative endorsed by SCAR and IGBP. The primary planned product of this cooperative endeavor is the description and understanding of environmental change in Antarctica over the last at least two centuries to 1000 years.

In May 1996 a workshop sponsored by the National Science Foundation was held to develop a Science and Implementation Plan for a US contribution to ITASE. Because of the long-standing US research effort in West Antarctica, "US ITASE" chose to focus its activities in this region. The multidisciplinary US ITASE research plan integrates meteorology, remote sensing, ice coring, and surface glaciology and geophysics. In its entirety, ITASE incorporates a wide range of general scientific objectives. Those which are specific to US ITASE address the following questions:

• What is the current rate of change in mass balance over West Antarctica?
• What is the influence of major atmospheric circulation systems (e.g., ENSO) and oceanic circulation on the moisture flux over West Antarctica?
• How does climate (e.g., temperature, accumulation rate, atmospheric circulation) vary over West Antarctica on seasonal, interannual, decadal and centennial scales, and what are the controls on this variability?
• What is the frequency, magnitude, and effect (local to global) of any extreme climate events recorded in West Antarctica?
• What is the impact of anthropogenic activity (e.g., ozone depletion, pollutants) on the climate and atmospheric chemistry of West Antarctica?
• How much has biogeochemical cycling of sulfur, nitrogen, and carbon, as recorded in West Antarctica, varied over the last 200+ years?

The US ITASE field program began in 1999-2000, during which two cores were collected using a new lightweight 3" ("Eclipse") drill designed by Icefield Instruments, Inc. The driller was Michael Gerasimoff from Icefield Instruments (now with ICDS) under contract to ICDS. ICDS support, in the form of the Eclipse drill and driller Mark Wumkes, started in 2000-01. Wumkes and the Eclipse drill participated in the following two field seasons also, collecting in all three dozen cores along traverse lines that radiated across West Antarctica, ending at South Pole station in January, 2003. In 2001-02 and again in 2003-03, Wumkes tested and refined a successful new 2" ("Rongbuk") coring drill developed by Glacier Data in collaboration with the University of Maine.