| NSF Org: |
OPP Office of Polar Programs (OPP) |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | January 28, 2013 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | January 28, 2013 |
| Award Number: | 1311655 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
William J. Wiseman, Jr.
OPP Office of Polar Programs (OPP) GEO Directorate for Geosciences |
| Start Date: | February 1, 2013 |
| End Date: | January 31, 2016 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $213,598.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $213,598.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
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| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
201 PRESIDENTS CIR SALT LAKE CITY UT US 84112-9049 (801)581-6903 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
UT US 84112-9155 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): | ANS-Arctic Natural Sciences |
| Primary Program Source: |
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| Program Reference Code(s): |
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| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.078 |
ABSTRACT
The intellectual merit of this project lies in the first efforts at measurement of a newly discovered component of the Greenland Ice Sheet mass balance. The perennial firn aquifer (PFA) stores liquid water in the subsurface firn year-round, including throughout the winter. It was discovered in April 2011, but there were no measurements made within the PFA, thus its volume estimate and even formation process are unknown except for those from modeling. This project will use a wide variety of techniques to provide the first measurements of liquid water storage in the PFA. Density profiles and even simple observations of PFA stratigraphy assessing the relative proportions of firn, water, and solid ice will provide valuable data needed to calculate the unknown mass of the PFA. The project will also be able to identify the best measurement techniques, for further more complete assessment and future monitoring of the PFA, because a suite of measurement technologies will be tested during this field research. This proposal is funded through the EAGER mechanism because these unique drilling and measurement conditions force the research to be conducted in an exploratory manner with some aspects encountering high risk, but with high reward. The broader impacts of the project include the benefits of increased understanding of a new component of mass storage: this understanding is required for improvement in sea level rise estimates. Direct educational benefits include training of a graduate student in a standard academic setting as well as in preparation and execution of field work in harsh Arctic conditions. Exposure of the project science and its broader context of climate change will be communicated to the public through NASA?s outreach and education infrastructure.
PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH
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PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
This research furthered our knowledge of winter-time water storage in aquifers within the firn of the Greenland ice sheet. Our team, for the first time, successfully drilled and extracted two firn cores to a maximum depth of 60 m, above, within and below a 25-m-thick firn aquifer. We estimated a significant volume of free water being stored in the Greenland ice sheet firn of 140±20 Gt, representing 0.4mm of equivalent sea-level rise. This first estimate of the volume of stored meltwater in the Greenland-ice-sheet firn significantly contributed to our intellectual merit goals and provided the first measurements to compare with modeled estimates.
A string of temperature sensors was installed to monitor firn temperatures for more than 2 years. This record revealed recharge of the aquifer and the key role of autumn snowfalls that insulated the subjacent firn and prevented water within the aquifer from refreezing. Downstream lateral flow is suspected to accommodate the water table elevation changes that were detected. The aquifer impacts on the ice sheet include firn densification, alteration of the ice thermal state (warming the ice), and water from the aquifer could enter the englacial and subglacial hydrologic network, which would affect ice dynamics by speeding up the flow of ice to sea and contribute to sea-level rise. From the preliminary work, it appears the firn aquifer is more likely to store water over time, delaying sea level rise, but time residence has still to be quantified.
The broader impacts of this award included training and professional development of one graduate student and one postdoctoral researcher. They were involved in all aspects of the research including learning polar logistics, proper and safe field procedures, data collection, data analysis and publication writing.
For the glaciology and scientific community, the outcomes of this work have been disseminated throug 4 peer-reviewed publications so far, 1 PhD dissertation chapter and 1 book chapter. Reseults have also been presented at national and international conferences. For the general public, blogs were maintained to follow the team progress on the Greenland ice sheet and understand which questions that scientists seek to answer by conducting this research. Blogs received over 10,000 hits to date. Additionally the team presented this research to the local school in Kulusuk, Greenland providing the local community with information about the research and environmental change occurring in their region.
Last Modified: 04/16/2016
Modified by: Richard R Forster
