South Pole high resolution ice core water stable isotope record for dD, d18O

Abstract: Isotopic data for the South Pole Ice Core has been generated under a collaborative effort by the University of Washington Isolab (NSF Award#1443105) and the University of Colorado INSTAAR Isotope Lab (NSF Award# 1443328). This data set contains high-resolution stable isotope data (dD, d18O,) for the South Pole Ice core. D17O is submitted under University of Washington Isolab (NSF Award#1443105). Drilling was initiated in 2014 and completed in 2016, and subsequent analyses on the ice were performed at the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, University of Colorado using Continuous Flow Analysis (CFA) as described in Jones et al. (2017). Entire meters of core are slowly melted and resulting water is converted to vapor for analysis with two cavity ring down spectrometers (CRDS), a Picarro L-2130 for dD and d18O, and a Picarro L-2140 for d17O and calculated D. Each meter of ice takes approximately 40 minutes to melt, and data are generated nominally at 1Hz, resulting in approximately 2,400 data points per meter. Each data point is ascribed to a specific depth using a depth-assignment algorithm that accounts for mixing within the system. Multiple data files are generated: a) Unfiltered data for dD, and d18O from the main core: 5 m → 1751 m depth, (4,934,966 total data points) including outliers; b) Sub sampled dD and d18O data from the main core created by averaging all non-flagged data points on 0.5 cm intervals, (350,200 data points); and c) d17O and subsequent D17O for depths 556m → 1751m. Users of the data should understand that the main core data includes all data, with a flagging that allows users to filter data (see README files). We also analyzed three replicate segments (809-951m, 1020-1078m and 1499-1542m), which serve to verify the new methodology, and serve as alternate data for any sections that were otherwise compromised.

Tyler Jones, James W. C. White, Steig, E. J., Bruce H. Vaughn, Valerie Morris, Gkinis, V. , Markle, B. R. , Schoenemann, S. W. 2017: Improved methodologies for continuous-flow analysis of stable water isotopes in ice cores. Atmospheric Measurement Techniques, 10: 617-632. DOI: 10.5194/amt-10-617-2017