This is a partially developed activity description. It is included in the collection because it contains ideas useful for teaching even though it is incomplete.

Initial Publication Date: June 11, 2008

How do polar and tropical ice cores correlate?

This activity was developed during the Teaching Climate Change Using Ice Core Data workshop, held in June 2008.
Contributed by John Wehwiller, Tara Curtin, Thom Davis

Topic: Timing of Climatic Shifts

Course Type: upper level

Description

Students will download and evaluate data from specified ice cores in Greenland and Bolivia in an attempt to recognize and interpret rapid climate change events (RCCEs).

Goals

  1. Students will learn how to plot original data, including oxygen isotopes, particles, chloride, sulfate, nitrate, and methane into Excel spreadsheets.
     
  2. Students will learn how to interpret the plots for correlation of RCCEs.

Assessment

  1. Quality of Excel spreadsheet plots of ice core data.
     
  2. Interpretation of data plots to recognize synchronous or nonsynchronous responses to climate forcing in a written report.

Data Sources

 

NOAA index to Sajama, Bolivia ice core data

Sajama, Bolivia particles and gases: high resolution data
ftp link to data

Sajama, Bolivia 100 year averages of particle and gas data
ftp link to data

Sajama, Bolivia age model
ftp link to data

Sajama, Bolivia atmospheric del 180 data
ftp link to data

Sajama, Bolivia atmospheric gases
ftp link to data

GISP/GRIP/Byrd
ftp link to data