Summary
Law Dome is situated in East Antarctica, and is a relatively high elevation coastal site, with an ice core record spanning approximately 80,000 years. It receives high snow accumulation and is situated on the most northerly coastline in Antarctica (apart from the tip of the Peninsula), and as such it is sensitive to atmospheric chemistry changes over the Southern Ocean. This is in contrast to most Antarctic ice core records covering the same time span, which are retrieved from sites further inland, and which have much lower snow accumulation rates. We present changes in atmospheric chemistry signals through the LGM as recorded in the trace ion record of the coastal Law Dome ice core. These changes are compared to those recorded in the inland Dome C ice core. Looking at the similarities and differences between the inland and coastal records we can learn about the sensitivity of atmospheric signals to climate change and better understand the influence of wet and dry deposition. This comparative work will be complimented by an ice core drilling program planned Aurora Basin during the IPY (2008/2009 summer). This program aims to retrieve an ice core between Law Dome and Dome C to further investigate the differences recorded by Antarctic ice cores from inland and coastal sites.