Deconvolution-based resolution enhancement of chemical ice core records obtained by continuous flow analysis

Continuous flow analysis (CFA) has become a popular measuring technique for obtaining high-resolution chemical ice core records due to an attractive combination of measuring speed and resolution. However, when analyzing the deeper sections of ice cores or cores from low-accumulation areas, there is still need for further improvement of the resolution.

Here a method for resolution enhancement of CFA data is presented. It is demonstrated that it is possible to improve the resolution of CFA data by restoring some of the detail that was lost in the measuring process, thus improving the usefulness of the data for high-resolution studies such as annual layer counting.

The presented method uses deconvolution techniques and is robust to the presence of noise in the measurements. If integrated into the data processing, it requires no additional data collection. The method is applied to selected ice core data sequences from Greenland and Antarctica, and the results demonstrate that the data quality can be significantly improved.