Climate and Environmental Physics and Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Bern, 3012 Bern, Switzerland
Laboratory for Air Pollution/Environmental Technology, Empa – Swiss Federal Laboratory for Materials Science and Technology, 8600 Dübendorf, Switzerland
Remo Walther
Climate and Environmental Physics and Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Bern, 3012 Bern, Switzerland
Christoph Reinhard
Climate and Environmental Physics and Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Bern, 3012 Bern, Switzerland
Laboratory for Air Pollution/Environmental Technology, Empa – Swiss Federal Laboratory for Materials Science and Technology, 8600 Dübendorf, Switzerland
Laboratory for Air Pollution/Environmental Technology, Empa – Swiss Federal Laboratory for Materials Science and Technology, 8600 Dübendorf, Switzerland
We present a new method to extract the gases from ice cores and measure their greenhouse gas composition. The ice is sublimated continuously with a near-infrared laser, releasing the gases, which are then analyzed on a laser absorption spectrometer. The main advantage over previous efforts is a low effective resolution of 1–2 cm. This capability is crucial for the analysis of highly thinned ice, as expected from ongoing drilling efforts to extend ice core history further back in time.
We present a new method to extract the gases from ice cores and measure their greenhouse gas...