Spatial pattern of accumulation at Taylor Dome during Marine Isotope Stage 4: stratigraphic constraints from Taylor Glacier

• Published in: Climate of the Past
• Main Authors: Menking, James A., Brook, Edward J., Shackleton, Sarah A., Severinghaus, Jeffrey P., Dyonisius, Michael N., Petrenko, Vasilii, McConnell, Joseph R., Rhodes, Rachael H., Bauska, Thomas K., Baggenstos, Daniel, Marcott, Shaun, Barker, Stephen
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2019
• Subjects: Taylor Dome; Taylor Glacier; Antarc*; Antarctica; ice core; Ice Sheet
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-15-1537-2019; https://cp.copernicus.org/articles/15/1537/2019/

New ice cores retrieved from the Taylor Glacier (Antarctica) blue ice area contain ice and air spanning the Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 5–4 transition, a period of global cooling and ice sheet expansion. We determine chronologies for the ice and air bubbles in the new ice cores by visually matching variations in gas- and ice-phase tracers to preexisting ice core records. The chronologies reveal an ice age–gas age difference ( Δ age) approaching 10 ka during MIS 4, implying very low snow accumulation in the Taylor Glacier accumulation zone. A revised chronology for the analogous section of the Taylor Dome ice core (84 to 55 ka), located to the south of the Taylor Glacier accumulation zone, shows that Δ age did not exceed 3 ka. The difference in Δ age between the two records during MIS 4 is similar in magnitude but opposite in direction to what is observed at the Last Glacial Maximum. This relationship implies that a spatial gradient in snow accumulation existed across the Taylor Dome region during MIS 4 that was oriented in the opposite direction of the accumulation gradient during the Last Glacial Maximum.