Glaciology - Ice Core Research

Polar ice cores represent the only direct atmospheric climate archive that allows us to reconstruct temperature, precipitation rate, as well as atmospheric composition. The latter comprises both aerosol particles in the atmosphere, deposited onto the ice sheets, and the gas composition of the past atmosphere as archived in air bubbles in polar ice. Paleoclimatic and biogeochemical studies over this entire range of ice core tracers are performed in the working group of Prof. Fischer at the University of Bern. Prof. Fischer is also affiliated to the Department of Geosciences at the University of Bremen and collaborates with the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, Bremerhaven.

Studied Materials
Ice sheets and ice caps in both polar regions

Methods

Novel gas chromatography/mass spectrometry techniques for high-precision analyses of gas isotopes in polar ice cores; noble gas mass spectrometry on ice core air enclosures; laser absorption spectroscopy for greenhouse gas concentrations and stable water isotopes; chemical and physical characterization of ultralow concentration aerosol species