The Eurasian continent is the largest landmass in the World, exerting substantial influence on atmospheric and terrestrial systems and the 2.5 billion people living in the region. Changes in climate over this region have dramatic impacts on humans and ecosystems. Further changes in water resources and desertification over this heavily populated region may cause unpredictable consequences all over the World. However, instrumented records of climate and environmental variability over the region are sparse. Ice cores from Asian glaciers provide a proven source of high-resolution records of past climate dynamics and chemistry of the atmosphere extending back at seasonal resolution centuries to millennia.

AICA will provide: unprecedented understanding of physical and chemical climate variability; a baseline for assessing modern climate variability in the context of human activity; and a contribution to the prediction of future climate variability for Asia. Results will be translated into publicly accessible information through public lectures, media appearances and an extensive on-going outreach activity. Our ice core research provides a major basis for curriculum in K-12 and University plus a foundation for several field and laboratory based graduate theses and undergraduate student projects.

The AICA high resolution, multivariate analyses proposed will set a new level of in-depth temporal and spatial multi-variable analyses and interpretation for Asian ice core research. Likelihood of success for proposal objectives is very high since previous records from this region have produced significant contributions. We expect AICA results to be of particular significance to climatologists, paleoclimatologists, atmospheric chemists, geochemists, climate modelers, solar-terrestrial physicists, and environmental statisticians.

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