Polar ice cores represent unique high resolution archives of changes in climate and especially atmospheric composition over the last several hundred thousand years. The objective of NEW KEYS is a quantification of these changes by developing analytical techniques for new tracers and to improve the understanding of processes affecting new and old ice core proxies.

Currently the research topics within NEW KEYS concentrate on

• Quantitative reconstruction of glacial/interglacial changes in the global carbon cycle using novel ∂¹³CO₂ and CO₂ analyses of air enclosures in Antarctic ice cores together with carbon cycle modeling
• Constraints on changes in methane emissions by novel carbon and hydrogen isotopic analyses on methane in ice core air bubbles in Antarctic and Greenland ice cores over the last glacial cycles
• Size resolved measurements of particulate dust in ice cores to constrain paleoclimatic changes in dust source areas and atmospheric transport
• Reconstruction of pore space and bubble structure of polar firn and ice which is dependent on climate dependent firnification processes. These studies are essential for an improved characterization of the air enclosure process , thus greenhouse gas records, in ice cores.