Deglacial temperature history of West Antarctica.
The most recent glacial to interglacial transition constitutes a remarkable natural experiment for learning how Earths climate responds to various forcings, including a rise in atmospheric CO2 This transition has left a direct thermal remnant in the polar ice sheets, where the exceptional purity and...
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ftcdlib:oai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt8472v5f9 2023-10-25T01:30:41+02:00 Deglacial temperature history of West Antarctica. Clow, Gary Steig, Eric Buizert, Christo Fudge, T Koutnik, Michelle Waddington, Edwin Alley, Richard Severinghaus, Jeffrey Cuffey, Kurt 2016-12-13 application/pdf https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8472v5f9 unknown eScholarship, University of California qt8472v5f9 https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8472v5f9 public Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of USA, vol 113, iss 50 Antarctica climate glaciology paleoclimate temperature article 2016 ftcdlib 2023-09-25T18:04:58Z The most recent glacial to interglacial transition constitutes a remarkable natural experiment for learning how Earths climate responds to various forcings, including a rise in atmospheric CO2 This transition has left a direct thermal remnant in the polar ice sheets, where the exceptional purity and continual accumulation of ice permit analyses not possible in other settings. For Antarctica, the deglacial warming has previously been constrained only by the water isotopic composition in ice cores, without an absolute thermometric assessment of the isotopes sensitivity to temperature. To overcome this limitation, we measured temperatures in a deep borehole and analyzed them together with ice-core data to reconstruct the surface temperature history of West Antarctica. The deglacial warming was [Formula: see text]C, approximately two to three times the global average, in agreement with theoretical expectations for Antarctic amplification of planetary temperature changes. Consistent with evidence from glacier retreat in Southern Hemisphere mountain ranges, the Antarctic warming was mostly completed by 15 kyBP, several millennia earlier than in the Northern Hemisphere. These results constrain the role of variable oceanic heat transport between hemispheres during deglaciation and quantitatively bound the direct influence of global climate forcings on Antarctic temperature. Although climate models perform well on average in this context, some recent syntheses of deglacial climate history have underestimated Antarctic warming and the models with lowest sensitivity can be discounted. Article in Journal/Newspaper Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica ice core West Antarctica University of California: eScholarship Antarctic The Antarctic West Antarctica |
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Open Polar |
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University of California: eScholarship |
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language |
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topic |
Antarctica climate glaciology paleoclimate temperature |
spellingShingle |
Antarctica climate glaciology paleoclimate temperature Clow, Gary Steig, Eric Buizert, Christo Fudge, T Koutnik, Michelle Waddington, Edwin Alley, Richard Severinghaus, Jeffrey Cuffey, Kurt Deglacial temperature history of West Antarctica. |
topic_facet |
Antarctica climate glaciology paleoclimate temperature |
description |
The most recent glacial to interglacial transition constitutes a remarkable natural experiment for learning how Earths climate responds to various forcings, including a rise in atmospheric CO2 This transition has left a direct thermal remnant in the polar ice sheets, where the exceptional purity and continual accumulation of ice permit analyses not possible in other settings. For Antarctica, the deglacial warming has previously been constrained only by the water isotopic composition in ice cores, without an absolute thermometric assessment of the isotopes sensitivity to temperature. To overcome this limitation, we measured temperatures in a deep borehole and analyzed them together with ice-core data to reconstruct the surface temperature history of West Antarctica. The deglacial warming was [Formula: see text]C, approximately two to three times the global average, in agreement with theoretical expectations for Antarctic amplification of planetary temperature changes. Consistent with evidence from glacier retreat in Southern Hemisphere mountain ranges, the Antarctic warming was mostly completed by 15 kyBP, several millennia earlier than in the Northern Hemisphere. These results constrain the role of variable oceanic heat transport between hemispheres during deglaciation and quantitatively bound the direct influence of global climate forcings on Antarctic temperature. Although climate models perform well on average in this context, some recent syntheses of deglacial climate history have underestimated Antarctic warming and the models with lowest sensitivity can be discounted. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Clow, Gary Steig, Eric Buizert, Christo Fudge, T Koutnik, Michelle Waddington, Edwin Alley, Richard Severinghaus, Jeffrey Cuffey, Kurt |
author_facet |
Clow, Gary Steig, Eric Buizert, Christo Fudge, T Koutnik, Michelle Waddington, Edwin Alley, Richard Severinghaus, Jeffrey Cuffey, Kurt |
author_sort |
Clow, Gary |
title |
Deglacial temperature history of West Antarctica. |
title_short |
Deglacial temperature history of West Antarctica. |
title_full |
Deglacial temperature history of West Antarctica. |
title_fullStr |
Deglacial temperature history of West Antarctica. |
title_full_unstemmed |
Deglacial temperature history of West Antarctica. |
title_sort |
deglacial temperature history of west antarctica. |
publisher |
eScholarship, University of California |
publishDate |
2016 |
url |
https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8472v5f9 |
geographic |
Antarctic The Antarctic West Antarctica |
geographic_facet |
Antarctic The Antarctic West Antarctica |
genre |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica ice core West Antarctica |
genre_facet |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica ice core West Antarctica |
op_source |
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of USA, vol 113, iss 50 |
op_relation |
qt8472v5f9 https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8472v5f9 |
op_rights |
public |
_version_ |
1780741642171449344 |