Historical Carbon Dioxide Record from the Vostok Ice Core (417,160 - 2,342 years BP) ...

• Main Authors: Barnola, J., Raynaud, D., Lorius, C., Barkov, N.
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: Environmental System Science Data Infrastructure for a Virtual Ecosystem; Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC), Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States) 2003
• Subjects: 54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES; East Antarctica; Vostok Station; Antarc*; Antarctica; ice core; Ice Sheet
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.3334/cdiac/atg.009; https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1394139/

In January 1998, the collaborative ice-drilling project between Russia, the United States, and France at the Russian Vostok station in East Antarctica yielded the deepest ice core ever recovered, reaching a depth of 3,623 m (Petit et al. 1997, 1999). Ice cores are unique with their entrapped air inclusions enabling direct records of past changes in atmospheric trace-gas composition. Preliminary data indicate the Vostok ice-core record extends through four climate cycles, with ice slightly older than 400 kyr (Petit et al. 1997, 1999). Because air bubbles do not close at the surface of the ice sheet but only near the firn-ice transition (that is, at ~90 m below the surface at Vostok), the air extracted from the ice is younger than the surrounding ice (Barnola et al. 1991). Using semiempirical models of densification applied to past Vostok climate conditions, Barnola et al. (1991) reported that the age difference between air and ice may be ~6000 years during the coldest periods instead of ~4000 years, as ...