An ice-core record of Antarctic sea-ice extent in the southern Indian Ocean for the past 300 years

The differing response of ice extent in the Arctic and Antarctic to global averagetemperature change, over approximately the last three decades, highlights the importance ofreconstructing long-term sea-ice history. Here, using high-resolution ice-core records of methanesulfonate(MS) from the East An...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Annals of Glaciology
Main Authors: Xiao, C, Dou, T, Sneed, SB, Li, R, Allison, I
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Int Glaciol Soc 2015
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.3189/2015AoG69A719
http://ecite.utas.edu.au/103903
Description
Summary:The differing response of ice extent in the Arctic and Antarctic to global averagetemperature change, over approximately the last three decades, highlights the importance ofreconstructing long-term sea-ice history. Here, using high-resolution ice-core records of methanesulfonate(MS) from the East Antarctic ice sheet in Princess Elizabeth Land, we reconstruct southernIndian Ocean sea-ice extent (SIE) for the sector 6292 E for the period AD 17082000. Annual MSconcentration positively correlates in this sector with satellite-derived SIE for the period 19792000(r 2 = 0.25, P < 0.02). The 293 year MS record of proxy SIE shows multi-decadal variations, with largedecreases occurring in two warm intervals during the Little Ice Age, and during the 1940s. It is verylikely that the global temperature is the controlling factor of Antarctic sea-ice variation at thecentennial scale, although there has been a change in phase between them in recent decades.