High Arctic Holocene temperature record from the Agassiz ice cap and Greenland ice sheet evolution

Reconstructions of past environmental changes are important for placing recent climate change in context and testing climate models. Periods of past climates warmer than today provide insight on how components of the climate system might respond in the future. Here, we report on an Arctic climate re...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Main Authors: Lecavalier, Benoit S., Fisher, David A., Milne, Glenn A., Vinther, Bo M., Tarasov, Lev, Huybrechts, Philippe, Lacelle, Denis, Main, Brittany, Zheng, James, Bourgeois, Jocelyne, Dyke, Arthur S.
Format: Text
Language:English
Published: National Academy of Sciences 2017
Subjects:
Physical Sciences
Agassiz Ice Cap
Arctic
Greenland
Climate change
Ice cap
Ice Sheet
Online Access:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5468641/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28512225
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1616287114
Description
Summary:Reconstructions of past environmental changes are important for placing recent climate change in context and testing climate models. Periods of past climates warmer than today provide insight on how components of the climate system might respond in the future. Here, we report on an Arctic climate record from the Agassiz ice cap. Our results show that early Holocene air temperatures exceed present values by a few degrees Celsius, and that industrial era rates of temperature change are unprecedented over the Holocene period (∼12,000 y). We also demonstrate that the enhanced warming leads to a large response of the Greenland ice sheet; providing information on the ice sheet's sensitivity to elevated temperatures and thus helping to better estimate its future evolution.

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