news release  March 29, 2005

Contacts: Heather Emmons, DRI PIO, heather.emmons@dri.edu, Reno (775) 673-7313 (w), (702) 743-3435 (c)
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DRI’s McConnell to foster collaborative relationship with Argentina through Fulbright Scholarship Award

McConnell map graphic
Dr. Joseph McConnell

The map above depicts the array of ice core sites being studied.  The orange circles mark existing ice core sites in West Antarctica and the South Pole. The blue diamond shows the site of Argentina's site at the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula and the yellow star shows the site of an Australian core that will likely be added soon.


RENO, Nev. – Dr. Joseph McConnell is well known in Nevada and the United States for landmark discoveries in global climate change gleaned from ice cores extracted from the polar regions of Antarctica and Greenland.  McConnell is about to take his career to a new level via a recently awarded Fulbright Scholarship that will allow him to be an ambassador to Argentina.  He will work in collaboration with South American ice core experts who have retrieved a valuable ice core from the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. 

The partnership is a win-win situation: Argentina has a unique ice core and the Desert Research Institute, where McConnell works, has a one-of-a-kind, million dollar, ultra-trace chemistry lab that can take chemical measurements down to an astonishingly small parts per quadrillion level.  Argentina’s ice core provides an additional data point in a larger ice core array, yielding a vital piece of information to McConnell’s extensive research.

The extra ice core, which dates from 1850 to 1999, will complement existing ice core records that show how and what kind of industrial, or human-caused pollution has affected global climate change over the last several hundred years.  McConnell’s primary collaborator in Argentina will be Dr. Alberto Aristarain, who is director of the Laboratorio de Estratigrafia Glaciar y Geoqumica del Agua y de la Nieve. 

As part of the commitments of the grant, McConnell will give six seminars in Mendosa, Argentina, regarding recent U.S. research in developing historical records of climate, meteorology, oceanic and atmospheric circulation, sea ice extent, dust transport, biogeochemical cycles, volcanism and environmental pollution from ice cores.  He will discuss seasonal snowpack issues affecting Argentina, which shares many similarities with Reno’s snow pack issues. 

“Mendosa is primarily a wine-growing region, and like Reno, 80 to 90 percent of its surface water supplies come from snowmelt,” McConnell said.  “Global climate change could have major impacts on the snow pack and glaciation in the Andes Mountains in Argentina, much like in the Sierra Nevada, which supplies Reno’s water resources.”

As a Fulbrighter, McConnell will join the ranks of some 265,000 alumni of the program over the past 50 years.  The Fulbright Program, the U.S. government’s flagship international educational exchange, is made possible through funds appropriated annually by the U.S. Congress and by contributions from partner countries and the private sector.  The program sends 800 scholars and professionals each year to more than 140 countries, where they lecture or conduct research in a wide variety of academic and professional fields.

A nonprofit, statewide division of the University and Community College System of Nevada, DRI pursues a full-time program of basic and applied environmental research on a local, national, and international scale. Nearly 500 full- and part-time scientists, technicians, and support staff conduct more than 150 research projects at DRI annually.  DRI generates $45 million in total revenue consisting predominately of competitively won research contracts and grants. The State of Nevada provides critical funding in support of DRI's administration, operations and maintenance, through the University and Community College System of Nevada budget. While DRI’s portion of the UCCSN budget is less than 1 percent, the institute leverages these funds to enhance its competitiveness.