Climatic variability in Princess Elizabeth Land (East Antarctica) over the last 350 years

• Published in: Climate of the Past
• Main Authors: Ekaykin, Alexey, Vladimirova, Diana, Lipenkov, Vladimir, Masson-Delmotte, Valérie
• Other Authors: Saint Petersburg State University (SPBU), Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement Gif-sur-Yvette (LSCE), Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université Paris-Saclay-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Direction de Recherche Fondamentale (CEA) (DRF (CEA)), Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA), Glaces et Continents, Climats et Isotopes Stables (GLACCIOS), Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université Paris-Saclay-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Direction de Recherche Fondamentale (CEA) (DRF (CEA))
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2017
• Subjects: [SDU.OCEAN]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Ocean; Atmosphere; [SDU.ENVI]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Continental interfaces; environment; Antarc*; Antarctic; Antarctica; East Antarctica; ice core; Princess Elizabeth Land
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-03104045; https://hal.science/hal-03104045/document; https://hal.science/hal-03104045/file/cp-13-61-2017.pdf; https://doi.org/10.5194/CP-13-61-2017

International audience We use isotopic composition (δD) data from six sites in Princess Elizabeth Land (PEL) in order to reconstruct air temperature variability in this sector of East Antarctica over the last 350 years. First, we use the present-day instrumental mean annual surface air temperature data to demonstrate that the studied region (between Russia's Progress, Vostok and Mirny research stations) is characterized by uniform temperature variability. We thus construct a stacked record of the temperature anomaly for the whole sector for the period of 1958-2015. A comparison of this series with the Southern Hemisphere climatic indices shows that the short-term inter-annual temperature variability is primarily governed by the Antarctic Oscillation (AAO) and Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO) modes of atmospheric variability. However, the low-frequency temperature variability (with period > 27 years) is mainly related to the anomalies of the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) mode. We then construct a stacked record of δD for the PEL for the period of 1654-2009 from individual normalized and filtered isotopic records obtained at six different sites ("PEL2016" stacked record). We use a linear regression of this record and the stacked PEL temperature record (with an apparent slope of 9 ± 5.4 ‰ • C −1) to convert PEL2016 into a temperature scale. Analysis of PEL2016 shows a 1 ± 0.6 • C warming in this region over the last 3 centuries, with a particularly cold period from the mid-18th to the mid-19th century. A peak of cooling occurred in the 1840s-a feature previously observed in other Antarctic records. We reveal that PEL2016 correlates with a low-frequency component of IOD and suggest that the IOD mode influences the Antarctic climate by modulating the activity of cyclones that bring heat and moisture to Antarctica. We also compare PEL2016 with other Antarctic stacked isotopic records. This work is a contribution to the PAGES (Past Global Changes) and IPICS (International Partnerships in Ice Core Sciences) ...