Ice Core | Projects
Guliya Ice Cap, China
Project Overview:
In 1992, an American-Chinese expedition successfully recovered a 308.6-meter ice core (see drill in photograph) from the Guliya ice cap (35°17'N, 81°29'E; summit 6710 m a.s.l.) in the far western Kunlun Shan on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, China (see map). Guliya resembles a "polar" ice cap, is surrounded by vertical 30 to 40 meter ice walls (see photographs) and has internal temperatures of -15.6°, -5.9°, and -2.1°C at 10m, 200m and the base, respectively. The 308.6 m core to bedrock provides the first high resolution ice core record of the last glacial cycle as recorded in the subtropics. The papers below discuss the late Holocene portion of the record, and the last glacial cycle, respectively.
Key Papers:
Thompson, L.G., M.E. Davis, P.N. Lin, J. Dai, J.F. Bolzan, and T. Yao. 1995. 1000 year climate ice-core record from the Guliya ice cap, China: its relationship to global climate variability. Annals of Glaciology, 21, 175-181. PDF
Thompson, L.G., T. Yao, M.E. Davis, K.A. Henderson, E. Mosley-Thompson, P.N. Lin, J. Beer, H.-A. Synal, J. Cole-Dai, and J.F. Bolzan. 1997. Tropical climate instability: The last glacial cycle from a Qinghai-Tibetan ice core. Science , 276: 1821-25. PDF