Collaborative Research: Using Stable Isotopes to Constrain the Atmospheric Carbon Monoxide Budget over the Last 20,000 Years

The investigators plan to reconstruct historical variations in the sources of atmospheric carbon monoxide (CO) from measurements of the concentration and stable isotopic abundance of carbon monoxide ([CO], 13CO and C18O) in the South Pole Ice Core, which is being drilled in 2014-2016. The goal is to strategically sample and reconstruct the relative variations in CO source strengths over the past 20,000 years. These will be the first measurements to extend the CO record beyond 650 years before present, back to the last glacial maximum. Both atmospheric chemical processes and variations in CO sources can impact the CO budget, and variations in the CO budget are useful in identifying and quantifying chemistry-climate interactions.