Please find links and descriptions to tutorials for 1) getting set up with ICE-D (ie connecting to the database from your own personal computer through various desktop applications like MySQL, ArcGIS, QGIS and Matlab), and 2) using ICE-D for some interesting visualization and analysis applications. Please email any of us on the project Greg Balco, Ben Laabs, and/or Joe Tulenko if you have further questions.

CONNECT TO ICE-D

On this page you find descriptions and links to tutorials for connecting to the database though various software products like Matlab, MySQL and in the future, ArcGIS and QGIS.

Here are some examples we have come up with so far. Please email any of us on the project Greg Balco, Ben Laabs, and/or Joe Tulenko with your ideas so we can add them to the list!

1) Analysis layer examples: the ICE-D X OCTOPUS web application The ICE-D X OCTOPUS web application is not very much like the rest of the ICE-D focus area applications because it doesn't rely on an ICE-D-maintained back end database. Instead, its data layer is the OCTOPUS database of cosmogenic-nuclide data used for erosion rate estimates. Also, the web application accesses those data by interacting with a Geoserver web feature server rather than a MySQL database. However, it does use ICE-D middle layer applications (the web service implementation of the online erosion rate calculator), so it's a good example of an analysis-layer application that uses both data-layer and middle-layer services. Also, it highlights the idea that you can mix and match data- and middle-layer servives from various places to do what you need to do. Finally, it's a pretty simple web application with a fairly minimal amount of code.

The source code for the ICE-D X OCTOPUS web app can be viewed here. It is written in Python 2.7, uses the webapp2 application framework, and runs on Google App Engine. Unfortuately this is kind of obsolete because GAE has been migrating to Python 3 and different web app frameworks (so I am not sure if you could install and run it on a newly created GAE project), but it is a nice simple example of how a transparent-middle-layer application can work.

2) Data-model comparison between LGM and penultimate moraine ages, and model output from simulations over multiple glaciations (ie the ice sheet influence on regional climate example). Hypothesis: if the impact from ice sheets on re-arranging large-scale atmospheric circulation and thus modulating regional climate is actually significant, we should be able to use climate model output to predict the geospatial patterns of moraine preservation over multiple glacial cycles. This could be tested by comparing moraine ages and geospatial patterns from the database with model output to see where there is good fit between model output and data and where there isn't.

See the example output figure below and find a link to the tutorial here.

3) Testing global expression of Younger Dryas Please find a tutorial and some matlab scripts used to generate some of the plots found in a recent paper from Greg Balco (Balco, 2021) in this example.

Tutorial here.

Matlab scripts here in this zipped folder.

4) Post-Glacial Greenland ice-sheet retreat time-distance diagram following up on a workshop at the University at Buffalo, we attempted to generate a time-distance diagram of SW Greenland Ice Sheet retreat and you can find the matlab script here.

5) Determining if measurement precision has gotten better through time This is a somewhat simple and fun exercise to investigate whether or not we as a community have been making progressively better measurements (ie improvements to field sample techniques, lab extraction procedures, AMS measurements, etc that should hopefully be leading to more precise cosmo measurements).

See the summary plot below that shows the story is a bit more complicated and perhaps we as a collective community have room for improvement.

please find a script that you can copy into a new script editor written to produce this plot here (actually not sure how to upload atm.. the wiki takes photos and pdfs but not text files?).

6) Is there a correlation between Al/Be ratios and sample elevation? This example is based off a recent publication (Halsted et al., 2021) that found there is a correlation between Al / Be ratios and elevation that likely needs to be taken into account.

The resulting plot below demonstrates there is a negative correlation (ie the ratio decreases as elevation increases):

please find a script that you can copy into a new script editor written to produce this plot here (actually not sure how to upload atm.. the wiki takes photos and pdfs but not text files?).

7) Heinrich Stadials aridity drives glacier retreat in the Mediterranean? This example is a follow up to a paper recently published in Nature Geoscience (Allard et al., 2021) that found that glaciers in the region may have been retreating during Heinrich Stadials due to more arid conditions.

They compiled many moraine and erratic boulder ages from across the Mediterranean, found intervals of erratic boulder deposition during Heinrich events and suggested this as evidence of retreat during Heinrich Stadials.

This is an example of an easily testable hypothesis using ICE-D: Do moraine ages across the Mediterranean more often lie outside of Heinrich Stadial events while erratic boulder ages more often line up within Heinrich Stadial events when compared to a random distribution of both moraine and erratic boulder ages? If yes, this would support the conclusions put forth in Allard et al., 2021. If no, it may bring into question some of the interpretations made in the paper.

The set up would first be to compare a random distribution of both moraine and erratic boulder ages against a North Atlantic record (such as the NGRIP d18O curve) and see how frequently ages line up with Stadials and warm intervals (ie, what % of the time, from x-x ka, do moraine ages line up with Stadial events? What % of the time do random ages line up with warm intervals? And do the same exercise for erratic boulders). Then, run the same exercise for the actual observed ages from the Mediterranean and compare. Is there actual evidence to suggest that moraine ages occur a higher % of the time within warm intervals compared to a random distribution? Is there evidence to suggest that erratic boulder ages occur a higher % of the time within stadial intervals compared to a random distribution? Who knows? Let's find out.

8) Identifying regions of possible heavy moraine degradation (using the moraine ages and land degradation models incorporated into the middle layer of calculations) and comparing identified areas of high degradation to geohazards (plate boundaries and areas of high seismic activity). Hypothesis: if geohazards actually present a notable obstacle to moraine dating through moraine degradation, then we should be able to find instances of high moraine degradation coinciding with high seismic activity.

Connect to the database