Reconstruction of millennial changes in dust emission, transport and regional sea ice coverage using the deep EPICA ice cores from the Atlantic and Indian Ocean sector of Antarctica ...

• Main Authors: Fischer, Hubertus, Fundel, Felix, Ruth, Urs, Twarloh, Birthe, Wegner, Anna, Udisti, Roberto, Becagli, Silvia, Castellano, Emiliano, Morganti, Andrea, Severi, Mirko, Wolff, Eric, Littot, Genevieve, Röthlisberger, Regine, Mulvaney, Rob, Hutterli, Manuel A., Kaufmann, Patrik, Federer, Urs, Lambert, Fabrice, Bigler, Matthias, Hansson, Margareta, Jonsell, Ulf, de Angelis, Martine, Boutron, Claude, Siggaard-Andersen, Marie-Louise, Steffensen, Jorgen Peder, Barbante, Carlo, Gaspari, Vania, Gabrielli, Paolo, Wagenbach, Dietmar
• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: Elsevier 2007
• Subjects: 530 Physics; Antarc*; Antarctic; Antarctica; EPICA; Sea ice; Southern Ocean
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.48350/25251; https://boris.unibe.ch/25251/

Continuous sea salt and mineral dust aerosol records have been studied on the two EPICA (European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica) deep ice cores. The joint use of these records from opposite sides of the East Antarctic plateau allows for an estimate of changes in dust transport and emission intensity as well as for the identification of regional differences in the sea salt aerosol source. The mineral dust flux records at both sites show a strong coherency over the last 150 kyr related to dust emission changes in the glacial Patagonian dust source with three times higher dust fluxes in the Atlantic compared to the Indian Ocean sector of the Southern Ocean (SO). Using a simple conceptual transport model this indicates that transport can explain only 40% of the atmospheric dust concentration changes in Antarctica, while factor 5–10 changes occurred. Accordingly, the main cause for the strong glacial dust flux changes in Antarctica must lie in environmental changes in Patagonia. Dust emissions, hence ...