Mass and Energy Fluxes Through Lake Vostok: Observations and Models

This award supports a two year project to address fundamental questions about
the mass and energy flux through Lake Vostok, a subglacial lake in East
Antarctica, sealed beneath almost 4 kilometers of ice. The project will involve
developing lake circulation models, complemented by the analysis of new ice
penetrating radar data over the lake and surrounding regions. This project will
help to accurately define the regions of melting and freezing within the lake
and help to provide an improved estimate of the form of the lake. The combined
data analysis and modeling effort will provide a critical framework for
developing international plans to sample the waters of Lake Vostok for biota
and to recover sediments from Lake Vostok for paleoclimate studies.