Dust: A Diagnostic of the Hydrologic Cycle During the Last Glacial Maximum

• Published in: Science
• Main Authors: Yung, Yuk L., Lee, Typhoon, Wang, Chung-Ho, Shieh, Ying-Tzung
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: American Association for the Advancement of Science 1996
• Subjects: Greenland; Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.271.5251.962

Dust concentrations in ice of the last glacial maximum (LGM) are high in ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica. The magnitude of the enhancements can be explained if the strength of the hydrologic cycle during the LGM was about half of that at present. This notion is consistent with a large decrease (5ºC) in ocean temperature during the LGM, as recently deduced from measurements of strontium and calcium in corals. © 1996 American Association for the Advancement of Science. 17 August 1995; accepted 1 November 1995. Supported in part by NASA grant NAGW 2204 to the California Institute of Technology and by NSC 84-2111-M-001-027GP from the National Science Council of the Republic of China. Y.L.Y. thanks the Institute of Earth Sciences and Academia Sinica for their hospitality during his sabbatical year and A. Ingersoll, L. Jaegle, C. Leovy, D. Rind, and I. Tegen for helpful discussions.