Methane concentration and delta deuterium of methane from the NGRIP ice core

The causes of past changes in the global methane cycle and especially the role of marine methane hydrate (clathrate) destabilization events are a matter of debate. Here we present evidence from the North Greenland Ice Core Project ice core based on the hydrogen isotopic composition of methane [dD(CH...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Bock, Michael, Schmitt, Jochen, Möller, Lars, Spahni, Renato, Blunier, Thomas, Fischer, Hubertus
Format: Dataset
Language:English
Published: PANGAEA 2010
Subjects:
DEPTH
ice/snow
Gas age
Gas chromatography
Greenland
ICEDRILL
Ice drill
Mass spectrometry
Methane
NGRIP
North Greenland Ice Core Project
NorthGRIP
Priority Programme 1158 Antarctic Research with Comparable Investigations in Arctic Sea Ice Areas
Sample code/label
Sampling/drilling ice
SPP1158
δ Deuterium
Antarctic
Arctic
Antarc*
Greenland ice core
Greenland Ice core Project
ice core
Methane hydrate
North Greenland
Sea ice
Online Access:https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.756715
https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.756715
Description
Summary:The causes of past changes in the global methane cycle and especially the role of marine methane hydrate (clathrate) destabilization events are a matter of debate. Here we present evidence from the North Greenland Ice Core Project ice core based on the hydrogen isotopic composition of methane [dD(CH4)] that clathrates did not cause atmospheric methane concentration to rise at the onset of Dansgaard-Oeschger (DO) events 7 and 8. Box modeling supports boreal wetland emissions as the most likely explanation for the interstadial increase. Moreover, our data show that dD(CH4) dropped 500 years before the onset of DO 8, with CH4 concentration rising only slightly. This can be explained by an early climate response of boreal wetlands, which carry the strongly depleted isotopic signature of high-latitude precipitation at that time.

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