Dating and interpreting a firn core from the East Antarctic Plateau

Detecting and understanding potential changes in annual mean temperature and accumulation rate at the East Antarctic Plateau is crucial to assess the sensitivity and future response of the Antarctic ice sheet to global warming. Due the very low accumulation rate and its spatial variability the interpretation of climate proxies from shallow firn cores with centennial to decadal time resolution is challenging. A major limitation is the available time resolution obtained by available dating approaches and a reliable assessment of its uncertainty.
In this study a 204 m long firn core, B56, drilled in 2016 on the East Antarctic Plateau, is analysed. The major goal of this study is dating of the firn core by combining different dating methods on the basis of available density data, dielectric properties, and ion chromatography (non-sea-salt sulphate) data. In order to utilize density, the Herron-Langway Model is used for determining the depth-age relation. In this model temperature and snow accumulation are assumed to be constant and the relationship between the snow density and the depth below the snow surface does not change over time. Depending on the used accumulation rate, the resulting age at 200 m depth varies between 6200 to 7200 years. Secondly, the dielectric profile and non-sea-salt sulphate's (nssSO4-2) concentration data are used for constructing another depth-age model, thereby matching prominent data peaks to known volcanic eruptions that have been recorded in the past. Here, the resulting age at 200 m depth is determined to about 4400 years, which compares well to published age models of firn cores from the East Antarctic Plateau. In comparison we find all age models to be consistent within the upper 40 of meters (approximately 1000years), but the Herron-Langway model to overestimate the age at greater depths. We propose that our findings indicate changes in accumulatıon rate in the past leading to the offset in the Herron-Langway model (using a constant accumulation rate).
However, by combining the dating methods we are able to not only provide a reasonable dating over the full firn core, but also to improve the time resolution of the derived age model. This will improve the interpretation of the climate proxies of this firn core and serve as a role model for other shallow firn cores from the East Antarctic Plateau.