Producing the first and longest continuous high-resolution records of past climate change ever, from the WAIS Divide ice core.

About My Research

Along with Andrew Schauer (in my lab) and Vasilieos Gkinis (University of Copenhagen), I co-developed the LC2140-i with Picarro!   This was part of a joint research project with Picarro, which was our idea, and which we worked on extensively with the Picarro spectroscopist, John Hoffnagle. The original paper describing the instrument, and demonstrating its effectiveness, was published jointly with Picarro in 2014.

See: https://amt.copernicus.org/articles/7/2421/2014/amt-7-2421-2014.html  

My lab regularly provides advice on running the instrument to other users around the world, in numerous applications, ranging from climate to paleoclimate to rock-water interactions and atmospheric chemistry.   We also defined the SLAP standard value for the capital-Delta ¹⁷O of water, now routinely adopted by other labs around the world and by the IAEA. We also published the recommended methods for obtaining high-quality routine measurements with this instrument, also widely adopted. Moreover, we used this instrument to develop critical corrections for clumped-isotope measurements on carbonates, now widely used as well.

How Picarro Analyzers Helped

We routinely use Picarro water-isotope instruments for analysis of ice cores, other water samples, and water we produce in the lab from other experiments, including the ¹⁷O of carbonates.   The importance of the LC2140-i, specifically, is that it makes the measurement of oxygen-17 in water much easier, safer, and more routine than previous methods using mass spectrometry. With these instruments, in collaboration with colleagues at the University of Colorado, we produced the first and longest continuous high resolution records of past climate change ever produced, one from the WAIS Divide ice core; this was followed by the first-ever continuous ice core water-isotope record that includes ¹⁷O from the South Pole.

The attached photo shows Eric Steig (kneeling) with the very first L2140-i, which is still running fine after a decade.