Antarctic surface temperature and elevation during the Last Glacial Maximum

• Published in: Science
• Main Authors: Buizert, Christo, Fudge, T. J., Roberts, William H. G., Steig, Eric J., Sherriff-Tadano, Sam, Ritz, Catherine, Lefebvre, Eric, Edwards, Jon, Kawamura, Kenji, Oyabu, Ikumi, Motoyama, Hideaki, Kahle, Emma C., Jones, Tyler R., Abe-Ouchi, Ayako, Obase, Takashi, Martin, Carlos, Corr, Hugh, Severinghaus, Jeffrey P., Beaudette, Ross, Epifanio, Jenna A., Brook, Edward J., Martin, Kaden, Chappellaz, Jérôme, Aoki, Shuji, Nakazawa, Takakiyo, Sowers, Todd A., Alley, Richard B., Ahn, Jinho, Sigl, Michael, Severi, Mirko, Dunbar, Nelia W., Svensson, Anders, Fegyveresi, John M., He, Chengfei, Liu, Zhengyu, Zhu, Jiang, Otto-Bliesner, Bette L., Lipenkov, Vladimir Y., Kageyama, Masa, Schwander, Jakob
• Other Authors: National Science Foundation, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Villum Fonden, European Research Council, French Polar Institute
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) 2021
• Subjects: Antarctic; East Antarctica; West Antarctica; Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.abd2897; https://syndication.highwire.org/content/doi/10.1126/science.abd2897; https://www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1126/science.abd2897

Antarctic paleotemperatures It has been widely thought that East Antarctica was ∼9°C cooler during the Last Glacial Maximum, close to the ∼10°C difference between then and now determined independently for West Antarctica. Buizert et al. used borehole thermometry, firn density reconstructions, and climate modeling to show that the temperature in East Antarctica was actually only ∼4° to 7°C cooler during the Last Glacial Maximum. This result has important consequences for our understanding of Antarctic climate, polar amplification, and global climate change. Science , abd2897, this issue p. 1097