>>10751238>Whats the temporal resolution of ice cores anyway?Ice core scientist here, the answer is actually tricker than a single number because it depends on what analyte you're trying to measure (some require more sample than others) and depend on which ice core you're talking about.
There's about a dozen and a half major ice cores drilled total, from Greenland and Antarctica. Ice core resolution depends on site temperature and accumulation rate. Sometimes we aim for the oldest ice possible (which means low T and acc) and get not as good as a resolution, like EPICA Dome C (the European project) and sometimes we go for high res ice core with high T and acc site like Law Dome (Australian side) and WAIS Divide (American side). If you're looking for temporal resolutions it is also tricky because as you go deeper (older) ice thins and compact further. So if you have a system that measure say water isotopes d18O of H2O(ice) every 2 cm then your temporal resolution would go more coarse as you go older. Also as analytical systems get better, we can measure stuff with less samples. So the older ice cores like Camp Century and Byrd have less resolution than new cores like WAIS and NEEM.
See pic attached. On the left is continuous flow analysis for water isotopes. Since ice core are made of ice (duh) there's plenty to be measured and we can measure samples continuously, at sub mm resolution. On the right is state of the art system for C14 in gas analysis (14CH4, 14CO). Since C14 is 10^-12 natural abundance, plus the trace amount (ppb) level of gas, we need about 300kg per sample, with resolution of every couple decades or more.
Also shout out to all the good /sci/anons in this thread arguing with deniers. You guys are doing fantastic holding the fort.
