A Genetic View into Past Sea Ice Variability in the Arctic

Arctic sea ice decline is the exponent of the rapidly transforming Arctic climate. If greenhouse gas emissions remain unchecked in the coming decades, summer sea ice loss may pass a critical threshold that could drastically affect the Arctic and global climate. The ensuing regional and global implications of such change can be understood by studying past climate transitions, yet few methods are available to examine past Arctic sea ice cover. This severely restricts our understanding of sea ice in the climate system.

Because satellite and historical observations are limited, it is crucial to have reliable proxies for assessing natural sea ice variability, its stability and sensitivity to climate forcing on different time scales. The main objective of this project is to develop environmental ancient DNA as a novel proxy for sea ice reconstructions. The innovation of this project is to use the genetic signature from surface water and sea ice organisms that are stored in sediments. This wealth of information has not been explored before, and requires calibration to observations and existing proxies for sea ice reconstructions.