Recent Climate and Ice-Sheet Changes in West Antarctica Compared with the Past 2,000 Years
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 below1-3. Atmospheric circulation changes have also caused rapid warming4 over the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, an...
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ftnasantrs:oai:casi.ntrs.nasa.gov:20150001452 2023-05-15T13:33:56+02:00 Recent Climate and Ice-Sheet Changes in West Antarctica Compared with the Past 2,000 Years Vaughn, Bruce H. Burgener, Landon Williams, Jessica Markle, Bradley R. Neff, Peter D. White, James W. Hoffmann, Georg Neumann, Thomas Allen Fudge, Tyler J. Rupper, Summer B. Steig, Eric J. Taylor, Kendrick C. Gallant, Ailie J. E. Ding, Qinghua Korotkikh, Elena Schoenemann, Spruce W. Mayewski, Paul A. Dixon, Daniel A. Teel, Rebecca P. Schauer, Andrew J. Kuttel, Marcel Schneider, David P. Unclassified, Unlimited, Publicly available April 14, 2013 application/pdf http://hdl.handle.net/2060/20150001452 unknown Document ID: 20150001452 http://hdl.handle.net/2060/20150001452 Copyright, Distribution as joint owner in the copyright CASI Meteorology and Climatology Geophysics GSFC-E-DAA-TN19592 Nature Geoscience; 6; 5; 372-375 2013 ftnasantrs 2019-07-21T00:18:46Z 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 below1-3. Atmospheric circulation changes have also caused rapid warming4 over the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, and contributed to declining sea-ice cover in the adjacent Amundsen-Bellingshausen seas5. It is unknown whether these changes are part of a longer-term trend. Here, we use waterisotope (Delta O-18) 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 18O 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, Delta O-18 anomalies comparable to those of recent decades occur about 1% of the time over the past 2,000 years. General circulation model simulations suggest that recent trends in Delta O-18 and climate in West Antarctica cannot be distinguished from decadal variability that originates in the tropics. We conclude that the uncertain trajectory of tropical climate variability represents a significant source of uncertainty in projections of West Antarctic climate and ice-sheet change. Other/Unknown Material Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica ice core Ice Sheet Ice Shelves Sea ice West Antarctica NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS) Antarctic The Antarctic West Antarctic Ice Sheet West Antarctica |
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Open Polar |
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NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS) |
op_collection_id |
ftnasantrs |
language |
unknown |
topic |
Meteorology and Climatology Geophysics |
spellingShingle |
Meteorology and Climatology Geophysics Vaughn, Bruce H. Burgener, Landon Williams, Jessica Markle, Bradley R. Neff, Peter D. White, James W. Hoffmann, Georg Neumann, Thomas Allen Fudge, Tyler J. Rupper, Summer B. Steig, Eric J. Taylor, Kendrick C. Gallant, Ailie J. E. Ding, Qinghua Korotkikh, Elena Schoenemann, Spruce W. Mayewski, Paul A. Dixon, Daniel A. Teel, Rebecca P. Schauer, Andrew J. Kuttel, Marcel Schneider, David P. Recent Climate and Ice-Sheet Changes in West Antarctica Compared with the Past 2,000 Years |
topic_facet |
Meteorology and Climatology Geophysics |
description |
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 below1-3. Atmospheric circulation changes have also caused rapid warming4 over the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, and contributed to declining sea-ice cover in the adjacent Amundsen-Bellingshausen seas5. It is unknown whether these changes are part of a longer-term trend. Here, we use waterisotope (Delta O-18) 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 18O 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, Delta O-18 anomalies comparable to those of recent decades occur about 1% of the time over the past 2,000 years. General circulation model simulations suggest that recent trends in Delta O-18 and climate in West Antarctica cannot be distinguished from decadal variability that originates in the tropics. We conclude that the uncertain trajectory of tropical climate variability represents a significant source of uncertainty in projections of West Antarctic climate and ice-sheet change. |
format |
Other/Unknown Material |
author |
Vaughn, Bruce H. Burgener, Landon Williams, Jessica Markle, Bradley R. Neff, Peter D. White, James W. Hoffmann, Georg Neumann, Thomas Allen Fudge, Tyler J. Rupper, Summer B. Steig, Eric J. Taylor, Kendrick C. Gallant, Ailie J. E. Ding, Qinghua Korotkikh, Elena Schoenemann, Spruce W. Mayewski, Paul A. Dixon, Daniel A. Teel, Rebecca P. Schauer, Andrew J. Kuttel, Marcel Schneider, David P. |
author_facet |
Vaughn, Bruce H. Burgener, Landon Williams, Jessica Markle, Bradley R. Neff, Peter D. White, James W. Hoffmann, Georg Neumann, Thomas Allen Fudge, Tyler J. Rupper, Summer B. Steig, Eric J. Taylor, Kendrick C. Gallant, Ailie J. E. Ding, Qinghua Korotkikh, Elena Schoenemann, Spruce W. Mayewski, Paul A. Dixon, Daniel A. Teel, Rebecca P. Schauer, Andrew J. Kuttel, Marcel Schneider, David P. |
author_sort |
Vaughn, Bruce H. |
title |
Recent Climate and Ice-Sheet Changes in West Antarctica Compared with the Past 2,000 Years |
title_short |
Recent Climate and Ice-Sheet Changes in West Antarctica Compared with the Past 2,000 Years |
title_full |
Recent Climate and Ice-Sheet Changes in West Antarctica Compared with the Past 2,000 Years |
title_fullStr |
Recent Climate and Ice-Sheet Changes in West Antarctica Compared with the Past 2,000 Years |
title_full_unstemmed |
Recent Climate and Ice-Sheet Changes in West Antarctica Compared with the Past 2,000 Years |
title_sort |
recent climate and ice-sheet changes in west antarctica compared with the past 2,000 years |
publishDate |
2013 |
url |
http://hdl.handle.net/2060/20150001452 |
op_coverage |
Unclassified, Unlimited, Publicly available |
geographic |
Antarctic The Antarctic West Antarctic Ice Sheet West Antarctica |
geographic_facet |
Antarctic The Antarctic West Antarctic Ice Sheet West Antarctica |
genre |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica ice core Ice Sheet Ice Shelves Sea ice West Antarctica |
genre_facet |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica ice core Ice Sheet Ice Shelves Sea ice West Antarctica |
op_source |
CASI |
op_relation |
Document ID: 20150001452 http://hdl.handle.net/2060/20150001452 |
op_rights |
Copyright, Distribution as joint owner in the copyright |
_version_ |
1766047190845751296 |