Main tasks within ice2sea: Programme coordination (W3.1)
Description of institution: Niels Bohr Institute is the Physics Institute at the University of Copenhagen. The institute provides bachelor, master and PhD programs in the fields of geophysics, physics, astronomy, biophysics and nanophysics. The institute has a strong research program with a strong international component. The Centre of Ice and Climate is a Centre of Excellence funded by the Danish National Research Foundation. Our vision is to contribute to an improved understanding of the present and past warm interglacial periods by studying ice cores, and developing models to explain observations and predict the ice sheet response to climate change. Ice cores provide a comprehensive history of climate with high resolution and they document the full dynamics of the coupled atmosphere-ocean-ice system. The centre will lead an international effort in cutting-edge climate research using deep Greenland ice cores and make a significant contribution to Danish International Polar Year activities on the evolution of the Greenland ice sheet. The Centre of Ice and Climate leads and coordinates the IPY deep drilling project, NorthEem on the Greenland Ice Sheet in which 14 nations participate. The aim of the deep ice core drilling project is to drill an ice core reaching 150.000 years bak in time in undisturbed stratigraphy to study the previous warm climatic period, the Eemian, as an analog to a coming warmer world. The Centre of Ice and Climate has the Worlds most extensive collection of deep and shallow ice cores from the Greenland Ice Sheet in cold rooms at the University of Copenhagen.
Department name: Not applicable
Staff member: Prof Dorthe Dahl-Jensen
Profile of staff member: DDJ has worked as a glaciologist since 1988 and is now a Principal Investigator at the Niels Bohr Institute, where she has led the ice core related research programs since 2000. At present DDJ leads a Centre of Excellence on Ice and Climate which employs 50 senior researchers, post docs, PhD students and Master students. The main research of DDJ is in reconstruction of climate records from ice cores and borehole data, ice flow models to date ice cores, continuum mechanical properties of anisotropic ice, ice in the solar system and the history and evolution of the Greenland Ice Sheet. DDJ is chairman of the Danish National Committee for IPY and for SCAR. She is lead author of the chapter on the Greenland Ice Sheet in the Assessment report on the State of the Cryosphere, under Arctic Council, AMAP. She is cluster leader of the IPY cluster (118) ‘Stability of the Greenland Ice Sheet’, Member of Scientific Council of the ISAC and Chairman of the deep ice core drilling project NEEM’s Steering Committee. She gives 4-5 invited talks each year including Science lesson at the Greenland Dialogue Meeting for 25 Environmental Ministers, 2005: Science lesson for The Presidents Science and Technology Advisory Board, The White House, 2005; Key Note Speak at the Arctic Science Summit Meeting, 2006+2007; Science lesson Videnskabernes Selskab, European Energy Agency, Tallberg Foundation 2007, SCAR symposium 2007
Selected references:
Willerslev, E., Dahl-Jensen, D., Steffensen, J. P., Sharp, M., Schwenninger, J.-L.,Nielsen, R., Johnsen, S. J., Collins, M., Bennike, O., Nathan, R., Boomsma, W., Allan, L. & Hofreiter, M. Ice core genetics reveals a forested southern Greenland. Science
Andersen, K. K., A. Svensson, S. O. Rasmussen, J. P. Steffensen, S. J. Johnsen, M. Bigler, R. Röthlisberger, U. Ruth, M.-L. Siggaard-Andersen, D. Dahl-Jensen, B. M. Vinther and H. B. Clausen (2006). “The Greenland Ice Core Chronology 2005, 15-42 kyr. Part 1: Constructing the time scale.” Quaternary Science Reviews 25(23-24): 3246-3257.
Dahl-Jensen, D. (2006). “NGRIP ice core reveals detailed climatic history 123 kyrs back in time.” Pages News 14(1): 15-16.
EPICA community members (2006). “One-to-one coupling of glacial climate variability in Greeland and Antartctica.” Nature 444(7116): 195-198.
