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........ published in NEWSLETTER # 59

CHEMICAL EXCHANGE BETWEEN THE ATMOSPHERE AND POLAR SNOW
by Dr. E. Wolff, British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge (U.K.)

Polar ice cores have provided tremendous advances in our knowledge of past climate change. They also contain an archive of geochemical data that can certainly delineate some of the forcing factors that govern climate change. However, our ability to interpret these data is severely limited by lack of knowledge of the processes governing the transfer chemical species from the air to the snow. Several recent research projects have started to address this issue, and the Advanced Research Workshop was convened in March 1995 to build on this work. This book, based on the ARW (NATO ASI SERIES I43) consists mainly of a series of invited, peer-reviewed chapters that outline the potential and problems of ice core chemistry, and then discuss the processes involved in air-snow transfer. The book gives the state of current knowledge, and an agenda for future work. With new expensive ice core drillings in Antarctica now underway, this book shows how full value might be extracted from the chemical records in the cores.
Reference books: G28, I23, I30, I41, I43

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