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Skidaway Institute awarded grant to study glacier carbon

Skidaway Institute of Oceanography researchers Aron Stubbins and Marc Frischer received a $224,037 grant from the National Science Foundation to study the origins of organic carbon in glaciers.

They're part of an international team working on the two-year project, according to the Skidaway Institute.

Stubbins and Frischer theorize that carbon in glacial ice comes from atmospheric carbon dioxide released by the combustion of fossil fuels caught in the frozen glacier.

Their proposed work will determine how much fossil fuels contribute to the dissolved organic material in the glaciers. It will involve verifying the age and stability of the glacial dissolved organic material and quantifying how much of it is being exported to downstream ecosystems, according to the institute.

Stubbins and Frischer will be working with scientists Robert Spencer, Woods Hole Research Center; Eran Hood, University of Alaska Southeast; Peter A. Raymond, Yale University; Greg Kok, Droplet Measurement Technologies; and Thorsten Dittmar, Max Planck Group for Marine Geochemistry, Oldenburg, Germany.

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