Orbital and millennial Antarctic climate variability over the past 800,000 years

Jean Jouzel (1, 2) , Valérie Masson-Delmotte (1, 2) , O. Cattani (1, 2) , G. Dreyfus (1, 2) , S. Falourd (1, 2) , Georg Hoffmann (1, 2) , B. Minster (1, 2) , J. Nouet (1) , Jean-Marc Barnola (3) , Jérôme Chappellaz (3) , Hubertus Fischer (4) , J. C. Gallet (3) , Sigfus Johnsen (5, 6) , Markus Leuenberger (7) , Laetitia Loulergue (3) , Dieter Lüthi (7) , H. Oerter (4) , F. Parrenin (3) , G. Raisbeck (8) , Dominique Raynaud (3) , A. Schilt (7) , Jakob Schwander (7) , E. Selmo (9) , Roland Souchez (10) , Renato Spahni (7) , Bernard Stauffer (7) , J. P. Steffensen (3) , Barbara Stenni (11) , Thomas F. Stocker (7) , J. L. Tison (10) , M. Werner (12) , E. Wolff (13)

1 LSCE - Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement [Gif-sur-Yvette]
2 GLACCIOS - Glaces et Continents, Climats et Isotopes Stables
3 LGGE - Laboratoire de glaciologie et géophysique de l'environnement
4 Abteilung Klinische Sozialmedizin, Berufs- und Umweltdermatologie
5 Geophysics and Water Resources
6 Science Institute
7 Physics Institute
8 CSNSM - Centre de Spectrométrie Nucléaire et de Spectrométrie de Masse
9 Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra [Parma]
10 Département des Sciences de la Terre et de l'Environnement
11 Department of Geological, Environmental and Marine Sciences [Trieste]
12 MPI-BGC - Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry
13 BAS - British Antarctic Survey

A high-resolution deuterium profile is now available along the entire European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica Dome C ice core, extending this climate record back to marine isotope stage 20.2, 800,000 years ago. Experiments performed with an atmospheric general circulation model including water isotopes support its temperature interpretation. We assessed the general correspondence between Dansgaard-Oeschger events and their smoothed Antarctic counterparts for this Dome C record, which reveals the presence of such features with similar amplitudes during previous glacial periods. We suggest that the interplay between obliquity and precession accounts for the variable intensity of interglacial periods in ice core records.

Domains: Glaciology

Jean Jouzel, Valérie Masson-Delmotte, O. Cattani, G. Dreyfus, S. Falourd, et al.. Orbital and millennial Antarctic climate variability over the past 800,000 years. Science, 2007, 317 (5839), pp.793-796. ⟨10.1126/science.1141038⟩. ⟨insu-00376332⟩