This section should short and concise. The information you provide will be used for post-season publications such as Antarctica New Zealand's annual report, media releases and other information documents, so that we can give informed coverage of your science. As a result, the audience is likely to be largely non-scientists so we ask that you present your submission in an easy to read 'laymans' style.

a. Context of research in terms of the contribution to scientific knowledge and to the Science Strategy and the relevance of the research

Unprecedented changes are occurring in the Earth's climate. 2005 and 1998 were the warmest two years in the instrumental global surface air temperature record since 1850. The global average surface temperature has increased, especially since about 1950 with 100-year trend (1906-2005) of 0.74°C ± 0.18°C (IPCC, 2007). Although the scientific evidence of global warming is now widely regarded as incontrovertible, predicting regional impacts is proving more problematic. Especially, conclusions of the Southern Hemisphere record are limited by the sparseness of available proxy data at present (Mann & Jones, 2003).

While meteorological records from instrumental and remote sensing data display the large intercontinental climate variability, the series are insufficient to infer trends or to understand the forcing, which renders prediction difficult (Jones et al., 1999; Mann & Jones, 2003). The long ice core records from the Antarctic interior and Greenland revolutionised our understanding of global climate and showed for the first time the occurrence of RCE (Rapid Climate Change Events) (for review e.g. Mayweski and White (2002)). To understand the drivers and consequences of climate change on timescales important to humans, a new focus of ice core work is now moving towards the acquisition of 'local' ice cores that overlap with and extend the instrumental records of the last 40 years back over the last several thousand years.

This has been a key motivation behind the US-led International Transantarctic Scientific Expedition (ITASE) of which New Zealand is a member. The NZ ITASE objective is to recover a series of ice cores from glaciers along a 14 degree latitudinal transect of the climatically sensitive Victoria Land coastline to establish the drivers and feedback mechanism of the Ross Sea climate variability (Bertler et al., 2004a; Bertler et al., 2004b; Bertler & 54 others, 2005; Bertler et al., 2005a; Bertler et al., 2005b; Patterson et al., 2005). Furthermore, the ice core records will provide a baseline for climate change in the region that will contribute to the NZ-led multinational Latitudinal Gradient Project as well as providing a reference record for the NZ-led ANDRILL objective to obtain a high-resolution sedimentary archive of Ross Ice Shelf stability.

b. Research objectives

Automatic weather station set-up, maintenance, and data retrieval

In 2004/05 we deployed an automatic weather station on EPG. The data permit the calculation of transfer functions between ice core proxies and meteorological parameters, such as temperature, precipitation, meso-scale atmospheric circulation pattern, katabatic winds, and seasonality of snow accumulation. In addition a new snow accumulation sensor and high precision snow temperature probes allow us to monitor snow accumulation rates, the potential influence of snow loss through sublimation, wind erosion or melt, and the quality of preservation of the meteorological signal in the snow. Furthermore, the data allow us to estimate the uncertainty of re-analysis data (NCEP/NCAR and ERA-40 data) in the region. In addition we set-up a new automatic weather station at Skinner Saddle for the interpretation for our planned ice cores from Skinner Saddle and Gawn Ice Piedmont.

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Submergence Velocity Measurements at Victoria Lower and Evans Piedmont Glacier

The response time of a glacier to changes in accumulation or ablation is dependent on the size and thickness of the ice mass. In general, the response time of cold-based glaciers is positively correlated with the size of its ice mass, leading to long response times in Antarctica. For glaciers in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, with lengths on average of 5-10km and flow rates of 1 to 3 m/a, the response times are thought to range from 1,500a to 15,000a (Chinn, 1987; Chinn, 1998). Consequently, annual variations in surface elevation may only reflect changes in loss rates. As a result surface measurements of mass balance are difficult to interpret in terms of long-term mass balance (Hamilton & Whillans, 2000). This is especially the case in places like the McMurdo Dry Valleys where mass loss is thought to be predominately due to sublimation at ice cliffs and glacier surface caused by wind and solar radiation (Chinn, 1987; Chinn, 1998). For Victoria Lower Glacier (VLG), two mass balance measurements are available in the literature for 1983 and 1991 based on ice cliff characteristics and the motion of the glacier snout (Chinn, 1998). The measurements indicate that VLG was advancing 1.24m/a into Victoria Valley during this time period. However, the small number of observations (2) and the cliff's sensitivity to sublimation (contemporary surface ablation) result in a high uncertainty of longer term mass balance. To determine the longer-term mass balance of the glaciers, unaffected by annual surface variations, three 'coffee-can' or 'submergence velocity' devices (Hamilton et al., 1998; Hamilton & Whillans, 2000) were deployed at Victoria Lower Glacier in 1999/2000 and two at Evans Piedmont Glacier in 2004/05. These are annually re-measured to monitor mass balance changes.

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Drilling of five shallow firn cores from Windless Bight / McMurdo Ice Shelf

To determine dust flux through the McMurdo Ice Shelf and onto the seabed beneath, a series of shallow firn cores were recovered from the Windless Bight area. This region was chosen as a previously collected 20m firn core showed distinct dust layers that are dateable to the large storm events in the area, such as the winter storm of 2004. The shallow 3m cores are expected to contain the 2004 storm and will allow quantification of the amount of dust deposited during the storm in the region.

c. Preliminary results and discussions

Both weather stations at Evans Piedmont Glacier (EPG) and Skinner Saddle (SKS) were operational and collected data over the last season. Below the data are shown.

Our weather data show that over the past year snow accumulation at the two sites varied. EPG received a total of 50cm snow, predominantly during the summer period. SKS received a total of 1.60m snow accumulation, precipitating throughout the year. Our data suggest that both sites have above average snow accumulation making them high resolution climate recorders.

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Maximum summer temperature at EPG and SKS reached +12°C and +5°C, respectively. Minimum winter temperature at EPG and SKS reached −42°C and −45°C, respectively. At both sites battery voltage never dropped below 12V, despite the solar panel being buried at SKS for the crucial spring period.