Water stable isotope record of ice core WAIS divide ...

• Main Authors: Steig, Eric J, Ding, Quinghua, White, James W C, Küttel, Meinrad, Rupper, Summer B, Neumann, T A, Neff, Peter D, Gallant, Ailie J E, Mayewski, Paul Andrew, Taylor, Kendrick C, Hoffmann, Georg, Dixon, Daniel A, Schoenemann, Spruce W, Markle, Bradley R, Fudge, Tyler J, Schneider, David P, Schauer, Andrew J, Teel, Rebecca P, Vaughn, Bruce H, Burgener, Landon, Williams, Jessica, Korotkikh, Elena, Gkinis, Vasileios
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: PANGAEA 2018
• Subjects: DEPTH, ice/snow; δ18O, water; Ice drill; Antarc*; Antarctic; ice core; Ice Sheet; Ice Shelves; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.1594/pangaea.886046; https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.886046

Changes in atmospheric circulation over the past five decades have enhanced the wind-driven inflow of warm ocean water onto the Antarctic continental shelf, where it melts ice shelves from below. Atmospheric circulation changes have also caused rapid warming over the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, and contributed to declining sea-ice cover in the adjacent Amundsen-Bellingshausen seas. It is unknown whether these changes are part of a longer-term trend. Here, we use water-isotope (d18O) data from an array of ice-core records to place recent West Antarctic climate changes in the context of the past two millennia. We find that the d18O of West Antarctic precipitation has increased significantly in the past 50 years, in parallel with the trend in temperature, and was probably more elevated during the 1990s than at any other time during the past 200 years. However, d18O anomalies comparable to those of recent decades occur about 1% of the time over the past 2,000 years. General circulation model simulations suggest ... : Stable Water Isotope Data from WAIS Divide Ice Core 2005. Interpolated on 5 cm until the depth of 269.65 (after this depth sampling becomes coarse). ...