DEEPICE · Research and training network on understanding Deep icE corE Proxies to Infer past antarctiC climatE dynamics

Research and training network on understanding Deep icE corE Proxies to Infer past antarctiC climatE dynamics

The study of past climates has already shown that the climate of Earth is in a perpetual stage of change but some major changes which took place in the past require more research to fully understand them, such as the Mid Pleistocene Transition (MPT) which still lacks explanation. During the MPT, between about 900,000 years and 1.2 Million years ago, the cyclicity of glacial/interglacial cycles changed from 40,000 to 100,000 years. To better understand this major climatic change, Beyond EPICA project was launched with the aim of drilling and recovering ice from up to 1.5 Million years ago in Antarctica at Little Dome C. The analysis of the information contained in the ice core will enable the paleoclimate community to address major scientific questions on the role of ice-sheet size and atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations on the dynamics of past climate changes and thus to better understand the MPT. DEEPICE project will contribute to tackle these technical & scientific challenges with a consortium gathering expertise in instrumentation , statistical tools as well as glaciological and climatic modeling from 10 different countries. Benefitting from these complementary expertise, the project sets up an innovative training program allowing a new generation of researchers to acquire essential core and additional skills, as well as diverse soft skills. The 15 DEEPICE ESRs will carry out their individual research projects with a focus on an analytical or modeling subject in a strong interdisciplinary and intersectoral environment keeping in mind the importance of a combined data-model approach and with an active participation in science mediation in the field of climate change. The study of past climates through the analysis of archives like ice cores is key to understanding the way our climate system works and how it might change in the future. Improving the understanding of past climate events like the MPT, will help scientists to put recent changes in the atmosphere and climate into perspective and to provide a useful framework of paleoclimate data on which climate models can be based. This will enable us to improve climate models and thus better predict the future evolution of climate.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union