To predict future climate changes accurately, a better understanding of the climatic and environmental histories are essential. Ice retrieved in glaciers and ice sheets, called ice cores, allows us to reconstruct past climate and environmental condition through analyses of the ice, the impurities and gases preserved in it.
I analyze solid particles preserved in an ice core retrieved from the Greenland Ice Sheet to study past climate and environmental condition of the Arctic region. To learn about other techniques and analyses of stable isotopes, soluble impurities, and gases, I participated in the PhD School on Ice Core Analysis Techniques (ICAT PhD School) at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark.
The ICAT PhD School intended to educate young ice core scientists, such as PhD student and postdocs, and to encourage a collaborative environment for the participants. The School focused on basic and advanced analytical techniques for ice core research and climatic interpretations from the analyses. Lecturers were ice core scientists specializing in each sub-field from the University of Copenhagen and other institutes/universities. Twenty-seven participants gathered from many countries, making the School quite international.
The School consisted of lectures, discussions, exercises, and laboratory tours over a 6-day period. The lectures covered topics from the basics to the state-of-the-art techniques. I had excellent opportunities for discussing and sharing the latest research topics and issues on the analyses I do with participants who are working with a similar theme to mine.
The 6 days I spent in Copenhagen were very substantial. My experiences will undoubtedly contribute to my present study and young researchers' network. This School will continue to enliven the studies on past Arctic climate and environmental condition and will culminate in providing essential information for climate change studies.
Wataru Shigeyama(The Graduate University for Advanced Studies, a collaborator of theme 2)
A lecture about chronology. A corridor was also our lecture room when we leaned a climatic record from Greenland ice cores back to ca. 123,000 years.
A group photo from an excursion to Odsherred
