| Summary: | Ethane is one of the most abundant non-methane hydrocarbon gases in the atmosphere with emissions from production and use of fossil fuels, from biomass and biofuel burning and from geologic sources. Ethane levels in the atmosphere have been used to understand and quantify the variability in fossil fuel and biomass burning emissions through time. In this project, paleo-atmospheric levels of ethane were measured in the air bubbles of polar ice cores using a wet-extraction (melt-refreeze) technique (see Nicewonger et al., 2016; Nicewonger et al., 2018). Ice core samples from Summit, Greenland (GISP2B, GISP2D), WAIS Divide, Antarctica (WDC05A, WDC06A) and South Pole, Antarctica (SPC14) were analyzed covering the last 1,000 years (~1000 – 1900 Common Era). The paleo-atmospheric ethane levels from this project allowed for the reconstruction of biomass burning ethane emissions over the last 1,000 years. Please refer to the corresponding manuscript for more information on these data and how the gas ages were calculated (Nicewonger et al., 2018 PNAS SI Appendix).
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