Ice Drilling Program Office

This award provides support to the Ice Drilling Program Office (IDPO) and Ice Drilling Design and Operations (IDDO) group to provide community leadership in ice drilling research and development. The goal is to enhance communication and information exchange related to ice coring and drilling science and technology and to establish activities in collaboration with the science and engineering community that will contribute to new discoveries in climate and environmental science that are important to society. Through collaboration with the IDDO and the science community, new technology needs will be identified, plans will be developed to acquire this technology and the existing drills that are available will be provided to scientists to support their research, along with drillers (when needed) who have the expertise to operate the drills. The intellectual merit of this project relates to the importance of ice cores and boreholes through the polar ice sheets that have led to many important discoveries and have revolutionized climate science. These discoveries have also had important impacts on policy and thus also have societal relevance. Continued U.S. scientific leadership in this area depends critically not only on the support of scientists doing this research but also on the continued support to the engineering community for technology development activities. International collaboration and cooperation in ice coring and drilling through the International Partnerships in Ice Core Sciences (IPICS) is also critical for sustaining drilling expertise and development of innovations in drilling technology. The broader impacts of this effort include the importance of the effective planning, coordination , and execution of ice drilling projects defined by the science community to meet long-range science goals. These programs will include a diverse range of students and other personnel who will go on to careers in science, engineering, and technology and who will contribute in various ways to discoveries with societal relevance. The education and outreach programs of IDPO will foster diversity through a partnership with the American Meteorological Society that will expose a network of faculty from minority institutions and community colleges to the field of ice coring and drilling science and engineering. As part of this program the faculty will be given the tools they need to provide their students with cutting-edge lessons and insight into inspiring careers in science and engineering. IDPO outreach efforts will sustain the pipeline of scientists and engineers by continuing to support activities and programs of the Association of Polar Early Career Scientists (APECS) and will advance public literacy by humanizing the face of climate science by promoting interviews of science community members on mainstream media and television shows. This award will have field work in both Greenland and Antarctica.