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IPICS (ice cores)

The Expert Group for International Partnership in Ice Core Sciences aims to coordinate international collaboration between ice core scientists, engineers, and drillers to aid in providing information about past climate and environmental conditions on timescales from decades to hundreds of millennia.

Ice cores provide information about past climate and environmental conditions on timescales from decades to hundreds of millennia, and direct records of the composition of the atmosphere. As such, they are cornerstones of global change research. For example, ice cores play a central role in showing how closely climate and greenhouse gas concentrations were linked in the past, and in demonstrating that very abrupt climate switches can occur.

About

With the completion of major projects in Greenland and Antarctica over the last 15 years, the international ice coring community is planning for the next several decades. The costs and scope of future work create the need for coordinated international collaboration. Developing this international collaboration is the charge of IPICS, the International Partnerships in Ice Core Sciences, a planning group currently composed of ice core scientists, engineers, and drillers from 24 nations. IPICS is supported by SCAR, where it is an Expert Group under the Physical Sciences Group, PAGES (Past Global Changes), and IACS (International Association of Cryospheric Sciences).

International Partnerships in Ice Core Sciences (IPICS) consists of ice core scientists, engineers, and drillers from the leading laboratories and national operators carrying out ice core science, acting to further the aims as described in the mission statement. The mission is to define and develop priorities, enable coordination between different ice core laboratories, act as a voice for the ice core community, and train the next generation of ice core scientists. It now consists of representatives from 24 nations, and it is believed all nations with an active ice core programme are members.

Active since 2002, and affiliated to PAGES (Past Global Changes) and IACS (International Association of Cryospheric Sciences), IPICS became a SCAR Expert Group in 2008. Following an external review of IPICS, the SCAR Delegates Meeting in 2016 approved the continuation of the Expert Group for 8 more years (2016-2024).

IPICS set itself a goal to define a series of priority projects, around which international efforts could coalesce, but keeping them to a small number (maximum 5). The current white papers are for Oldest ice, Last Interglacial, IPICS-40k, and IPICS-2k. There is also a white paper about technical challenges such as drilling technology:

1. The oldest ice core: A 1.5 million year record of climate and greenhouse gases from Antarctica (a time period where Earth’s climate shifted from 40,000 year to 100,000 year cycles).

2. History and Dynamics of the Last Interglacial Period from Ice Cores: A comprehensive record of environmental change during the last interglacial period

3. The IPICS 40,000 year network: A bipolar record of climate forcing and response

4. The IPICS 2k Array: A network of ice core climate and climate forcing records for the last two millennia

5. A fifth, and critical, element of IPICS is the development of advanced ice core drilling technology. A technical white paper, entitled “Ice Core Drilling Technical Challenges” addresses this.

Full information about IPICS is available on the IPICS website.

Terms of Reference

The IPICS Mission Statement is:

Defining priorities for international ice core science for the next two decades.
Developing the identified priority projects, and any organisational structures needed to enable them.
Acting as a voice to promote ice core science, and the priority projects in particular, to funding and logistics agencies, to international organisations, and to other scientific communities.
Promoting the maintenance, enhancement and sharing of expertise and capability in ice core drilling, curation, analysis and other technical areas needed to carry out the priority projects.
Encouraging the training of young ice core scientists needed to carry out the current priority projects and to develop the next generation of projects.

The IPICS Constitution is also available on the documents page of the IPICS website.

News

View in all IPICS

News and Updates from the IPICS Community.

Members

Contact

For more information about IPICS please contact:

Tas van Ommen, University of Tasmania
Hubertus Fischer, University of Bern, Switzerland

Membership

For more information about IPICS membership, visit the IPICS website hosted by PAGES.

(Full details are listed on the Steering Committee page of the IPICS website.)

Members

The IPICS Steering Committee as of June 2018:

Name and email	Affiliation	Nation	National or Project
Nerilie Abram	Australian National University	Australia	2k
Nobuhiko Azuma	Nagaoka University of Technology	Japan	Drilling
Carlo Barbante	IDPA-CNR, University Ca’ Foscari, Venice	Italy	National
Nancy Bertler	Victoria University of Wellington	New Zealand	National
Ed Brook	Oregon State University	USA	National and seesaw
Alison Criscitiello	University of Alberta	Canada	National
Dorthe Dahl-Jensen	University of Copenhagen	Denmark	National
Hubertus Fischer (Co-Chair)	University of Bern	Switzerland	National and Oldest Ice
Kumiko Goto-Azuma	NIPR	Japan	National
Margareta Hansson	University of Stockholm	Sweden	National
Soon Do Hur	Korea Polar Research Institute	Korea	National
Elizabeth Isaksson	Norsk Polarinstitut	Norway	National
Jay Johnson	Ice Coring and Drilling Services	USA	Drilling
Fabrice Lambert	Catholic University of Chile	Chile	National
Amaelle Landais	LSCE, Saclay	France	Terminations and seesaw
Vladimir Lipenkov	Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute	Russia	National
Thamban Meloth	NCAOR	India	National
Heinz Miller	Alfred Wegener Institute	Germany	Logistics
Rob Mulvaney	British Antarctic Survey	UK	National and seesaws
Joel Savarino	Université Grenoble Alpes	France	National
Elisabeth Schlosser	University of Innsbruck	Austria	National
Margit Schwikowski	Paul Scherrer Institut	Switzerland	2ka (non-polar)
Jeff Severinghaus	Scripps Institute of Oceanography	USA	Oldest Ice
Hou Shugui	Nanjing University	China	2ka
Jefferson Simoes	Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul – UFRGS	Brazil	National
Barbara Stenni	University of Venice	Italy	2ka
Thomas Stocker	University of Bern	Switzerland	1.5 Ma
Bo Sun	Polar Research Institute of China	China	1.5 Ma
Elizabeth Thomas	British Antarctic Survey	UK	2k
Thorsteinn Thorsteinsson	Icelandic Met Office	Iceland	National
Jean-Louis Tison	Université Libre de Bruxelles	Belgium	National
Rein Vaikmäe	Tallinn University of Technology	Estonia	National
R. Van de Wal	University of Utrecht	Netherlands	National
Tas van Ommen (Co-Chair)	Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems CRC and Australian Antarctic Division	Australia	National
Frank Wilhelms	Alfred Wegener Institute	Germany	National and Drilling
John Fegyveresi	Boston University / CRREL	USA	Ice Core Young Scientists
Eric Wolff	University of Cambridge	UK	Oldest Ice
Li Yuansheng	Polar Research Institute of China	China	National

Resources

Publications, Data and Links of interest to the ice core community

Reports

Toggle	Title	Date
	pdf IPICS Expert Group Report 2022 ( pdf, 226 KB )	11 Jan 2023
	pdf IPICS Expert Group Report 2020 ( pdf, 129 KB )	15 Apr 2021
	pdf IPICS Expert Group Report 2019 ( pdf, 76 KB )	16 Sep 2019
	pdf SCAR EXCOM 2019 Paper 14: Report from Physical Sciences Group ( pdf, 106 KB )	05 Sep 2019
	pdf SCAR XXXV Paper 17: Physical Sciences Group (PSG) Report ( pdf, 755 KB )	20 Sep 2018
	pdf SCAR EXCOM 2017 Paper 4: Report of Physical Sciences Group AND Physical Sciences Group Reports ( pdf, 964 KB )	02 Aug 2017
	pdf SCAR XXXIV WP06b: Physical Sciences Action and Expert Group Reports ( pdf, 1.77 MB )	30 Aug 2016
	pdf SCAR XXXIV WP06c: Review of the International Partnerships in Ice Core Sciences ( pdf, 589 KB )	30 Aug 2016
	pdf SCAR XXIX WP35: SCAR and IPICS ( pdf, 109 KB )	19 Jul 2006

Publications

Publications relating to the Oldest Ice White Paper:

Fischer, H., et al. (2013), Where to find 1.5 million yr old ice for the IPICS “Oldest Ice” ice core,
Climate of the Past, 9, 2489-2505, doi:10.5194/cpd-9-2771-2013.

Van Liefferinge, B., and F. Pattyn (2013), Using ice-flow models to evaluate potential sites of million
year-old ice in Antarctica, Climate of the Past, 9(5), 2335-2345, doi:10.5194/cp-9-2335-2013.

Alemany, O., et al. (2014), The SUBGLACIOR drilling probe: concept and design, Ann. Glaciol., 55(68),
233-242, doi:10.3189/2014AoG68A026.

Publications relating to the Last Interglacial White Paper:

Capron, E., A. Govin, E. J. Stone, V. Masson-Delmotte, S. Mulitza, B. Otto-Bliesner, L. C. Sime, C. Waelbroeck, and E. W. Wolff (2014), Temporal and spatial structure of multi-millennial temperature changes at high latitudes during the Last Interglacial, Quat. Sci. Rev., 103, 116- 133.

Masson-Delmotte, V., et al. (2011), A comparison of the present and last interglacial periods in six Antarctic ice cores, Clim. Past, 7(2), 397-423.

NEEM Community Members (2013), Eemian interglacial reconstructed from a Greenland folded ice core Nature, 493, 489-494, doi:10.1038/nature11789.

Schneider, R., J. Schmitt, P. Kohler, F. Joos, and H. Fischer (2013), A reconstruction of atmospheric carbon dioxide and its stable carbon isotopic composition from the penultimate glacial maximum to the last glacial inception, Climate of the Past, 9(6), 2507-2523, doi:10.5194/cp- 9-2507-2013.

Steig, E. J., K. Huybers, H. A. Singh, N. J. Steiger, Q. H. Ding, D. M. W. Frierson, T. Popp, and J. W. C. White (2015), Influence of West Antarctic Ice Sheet collapse on Antarctic surface climate, Geophys. Res. Lett., 42(12), 4862-4868, doi:10.1002/2015gl063861.

Publications relating to the 40k White Paper:

Marcott, S. A., et al. (2014), Centennial-scale changes in the global carbon cycle during the last deglaciation, Nature, 514(7524), 616-619, doi:10.1038/nature13799.

Mulvaney, R., N. J. Abram, R. C. A. Hindmarsh, C. Arrowsmith, L. Fleet, J. Triest, L. C. Sime, O. Alemany, and S. Foord (2012), Recent Antarctic Peninsula warming relative to Holocene climate and ice-shelf history, Nature, 489(7414), 141-144, doi:http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v489/n7414/abs/nature11391.html#supplementary-information.

Pedro, J. B., S. O. Rasmussen, and T. D. van Ommen (2012), Tightened constraints on the time-lag between Antarctic temperature and CO2 during the last deglaciation, Climate of the Past, 8(4), 1213-1221, doi:10.5194/cp-8-1213-2012.

Wais Divide Project Members (2015), Precise interpolar phasing of abrupt climate change during the last ice age, Nature, 520(7549), 661-665, doi:10.1038/nature14401
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v520/n7549/abs/nature14401.html#supplementary- information.

Publications relating to the 2k White Paper:

Pages 2k Consortium (2013), Continental-scale temperature variability during the past two millennia,
Nature Geoscience, 6(5), 339-346, doi:10.1038/ngeo1797.

Sigl, M., et al. (2015), Timing and climate forcing of volcanic eruptions for the past 2,500 years,
Nature, 523(7562), 543-+, doi:10.1038/nature14565.

Details of other publications by the IPICS group are listed on the documents page of the IPICS website.

Data

Links