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.
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An important share of paleoclimatic information is buried within the lowermost layers of deep ice cores. Because improving our records further back in time is one of the main challenges in the near ...future, it is essential to judge how deep these records remain unaltered, since the proximity of the bedrock is likely to interfere both with the recorded temporal sequence and the ice properties. In this paper, we present a multiparametric study (δD-δ18Oice, δ18Oatm, total air content, CO2, CH4, N2O, dust, high-resolution chemistry, ice texture) of the bottom 60 m of the EPICA (European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica) Dome C ice core from central Antarctica. These bottom layers were subdivided into two distinct facies: the lower 12 m showing visible solid inclusions (basal dispersed ice facies) and the upper 48 m, which we will refer to as the "basal clean ice facies". Some of the data are consistent with a pristine paleoclimatic signal, others show clear anomalies. It is demonstrated that neither large-scale bottom refreezing of subglacial water, nor mixing (be it internal or with a local basal end term from a previous/initial ice sheet configuration) can explain the observed bottom-ice properties. We focus on the high-resolution chemical profiles and on the available remote sensing data on the subglacial topography of the site to propose a mechanism by which relative stretching of the bottom-ice sheet layers is made possible, due to the progressively confining effect of subglacial valley sides. This stress field change, combined with bottom-ice temperature close to the pressure melting point, induces accelerated migration recrystallization, which results in spatial chemical sorting of the impurities, depending on their state (dissolved vs. solid) and if they are involved or not in salt formation. This chemical sorting effect is responsible for the progressive build-up of the visible solid aggregates that therefore mainly originate "from within", and not from incorporation processes of debris from the ice sheet's substrate. We further discuss how the proposed mechanism is compatible with the other ice properties described. We conclude that the paleoclimatic signal is only marginally affected in terms of global ice properties at the bottom of EPICA Dome C, but that the timescale was considerably distorted by mechanical stretching of MIS20 due to the increasing influence of the subglacial topography, a process that might have started well above the bottom ice. A clear paleoclimatic signal can therefore not be inferred from the deeper part of the EPICA Dome C ice core. Our work suggests that the existence of a flat monotonic ice–bedrock interface, extending for several times the ice thickness, would be a crucial factor in choosing a future "oldest ice" drilling location in Antarctica.
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The ice core recently drilled at the Dome Concordia site on the East Antarctic plateau provides a new high resolution isotope record covering part of the last glacial, the last transition and the ...Holocene. The two step shape of the deglaciation is remarkably similar for all the ice cores now available on the East Antarctic plateau. The first warming trend ends about 14000 years ago and is followed by the well marked Antarctic Cold Reversal (ACR) with a secondary peak common to all records. During the deglaciation, there are more similarities between the near coastal site of Taylor Dome and inland East Antarctica than between Taylor Dome and central Greenland. However, the results for EPICA do appear to confirm the Taylor Dome timescale after about 14 ka, showing cooling into the ACR roughly in phase between Greenland and Antarctica. While the overall deglacial pattern is asynchronous, this suggests that the now classical picture of a temperature seesaw between Antarctica and Greenland may be too simplistic.
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Environmental conditions prevailing during build‐up of the Greenland Ice Sheet (GIS) are not yet established. Here we use results from gas isotopes from basal ice of the GRIP ice core to show that ...central Greenland was vegetated during invasion by the ice sheet. The δ13CCH4 and δ18O of O2 values obtained were never encountered before in ice core studies. Such values are indeed the signature of a significant biological activity.
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Isotope studies show that the Vostok ice core consists of ice refrozen from Lake Vostok water, from 3539 meters below the surface of the Antarctic ice sheet to its bottom at about 3750 meters. ...Additional evidence comes from the total gas content, crystal size, and electrical conductivity of the ice. The Vostok site is a likely place for water freezing at the lake-ice interface, because this interface occurs at a higher level here than anywhere else above the lake. Isotopic data suggest that subglacial Lake Vostok is an open system with an efficient circulation of water that was formed during periods that were slightly warmer than those of the past 420,000 years. Lake ice recovered by deep drilling is of interest for preliminary investigations of lake chemistry and bedrock properties and for the search for indigenous lake microorganisms. This latter aspect is of potential importance for the exploration of icy planets and moons.
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We present here the first comprehensive study of the chemical composition of accretion ice from Lake Vostok. Ion chromatographic analyses were performed on samples obtained along the deeper part of ...the Vostok ice core. Samples were taken from 3350 down to 3611 m depth, both in glacier ice and subglacial lake ice. The total ionic contents of two accretion ice layers—a few meters thick and centered around 3540 and 3590 m depth—are several times lower than those of glacier ice. Very low concentrations were also observed in the deeper part of accretion ice, below 3609 m depth. Elsewhere, the total ionic content is variable but remains 5 to 50 times higher than in glacier ice. Whatever its total ionic content, the ionic composition of accretion ice is significantly different from what is observed in glacier ice. It is dominated by sodium chloride, homogeneously distributed throughout the ice lattice, as well as calcium and magnesium sulfate, likely located in solid inclusions, or to a lesser extent at grain boundaries. Chemical considerations combined with additional studies of sulfur and oxygen isotopes in sulfate, and iron measurements strongly suggest that glacier water recycling and bedrock hydrolysis do not play a prominent role in providing impurities to accretion ice. It is more likely that NaCl rich water carrying fine sulfate salt particles is sporadically incorporated in the ice accreting in a shallow bay upstream from Vostok. The origin of such salty water, which should also contribute to Lake salinity, is discussed.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK
The timing and synchronisation of Greenland and Antarctic climate events that occurred during the last glacial period are still under debate, as is the magnitude of temperature change associated with ...these events. Here we present detailed records of local and moisture-source temperature changes spanning the period 27–45 kyr BP from water stable isotope measurements (δD and δ
18O) in the recently drilled EPICA Dome C ice core, East Antarctic plateau. Using a simple isotopic model, site (Δ
T
site) and source (Δ
T
source) temperatures are extracted from the initial 50-yr high-resolution isotopic records, taking into account the changes in seawater isotopic composition. The deuterium isotope variability is very similar to the less precise δD record from the Vostok ice core, and the site temperature inversion leads to a temperature profile similar to the classical palaeothermometry method, due to compensations between source and ocean water corrections. The reconstructed Δ
T
site and Δ
T
source profiles show different trends during the glacial: the former shows a decreasing trend from the warm A1 event (38 kyr BP) toward the Last Glacial Maximum, while the latter shows increasing values from 41 to 28 kyr BP. The low-frequency deuterium excess fluctuations are strongly influenced by obliquity fluctuations, controlling the low- to high-latitude temperature gradients, and show a remarkable similarity with a high-resolution southeast Atlantic sea surface temperature record. A comparison of the temperature profiles (site and source) and temperature gradient (Δ
T
source-Δ
T
site) with the non-sea-salt calcium and sodium records suggests a secondary influence of atmospheric transport changes on aerosol variations.
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A study of the isotopic and gas composition of the basal silty ice recovered by the Greenland Ice Core Project (GRIP) core indicates that local ice formed in the absence of the Greenland Ice Sheet is ...still preserved at Summit. Such ice developed most probably within a peat deposit in a permafrost environment. This local ice was subsequently intimately mixed with glacier ice from an advancing ice sheet progressing on the site. This is in agreement with the “highland origin and windward growth” hypothesis for ice sheet development, not for an in situ or regional growth from snowbanks. The basal ice from the GRIP core possibly dates back to the original buildup of the Greenland Ice Sheet 2.4 million years ago.
Water stress is rapidly increasing in many Mediterranean coastal zones mainly due to expansion in agriculture and tourism. In this paper, we focus on the Sierra de Gador–Campo de Dalias aquifer ...system (southeastern Spain) in order to assess the capability of water stable isotope analysis (
δD–
δ
18O) to refine the understanding on recharge of this karstic aquifer system. Different types of surface and groundwater were sampled along an altitudinal gradient from the recharge zone in the mountains to the coastal plain. Surface water is restricted to local runoff, collected in closed reservoirs. Runoff amounts, collected in three of these reservoirs were monitored together with the precipitation in their catchments. Meteorological maps were used to detect the origin of the precipitation generating the majority of the runoff. The results were compared to literature data on local and regional precipitation. The use of oxygen and hydrogen isotopic composition has proved to be a useful tool to explain the origin of groundwater in a Mediterranean karstic system. Such studies are, however, not numerous and are often limited to local scale recharge for fast-reacting systems. This paper focuses on the
δ
18O–
δD relationships of local precipitation to explain the isotopic variability of a large karstic aquifer system. The isotopic compositions of groundwater sampled along an altitudinal gradient from the recharge zone to the coastal plain are well displayed, in a
δD–
δ
18O diagram, on a mixing line connecting a pole of Mediterranean waters to a pole of Atlantic waters. The Atlantic signature predominates in the shallow groundwater of natural springs, reflecting the rainfall which produced the local runoff sampled. The Mediterranean signature is mainly restricted to deep groundwater from boreholes in the coastal plain. The existence of a degree of spatial separation of groundwater types demonstrates that groundwater flow in a complex karstic system is not always continuous. The Mediterranean signature of deep groundwater could be due to past extreme rainfall events during which connectivity between recharge and reservoir exists, while at the same time the Atlantic signature of recent winter rains dominates in shallow groundwater. The assumption that an equilibrium in isotopic composition is established within a continuous aquifer and that therefore a slope lower than 8 in a
δD–
δ
18O diagram indicates evaporation is not necessarily valid.
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A kinetic isotope effect is known to occur during ice formation from water vapour in a cloud ; it is due to the difference in molecular diffusivities in air of HDO and H218O molecules. A similar ...effect is likely during water freezing since diffusion coefficients of HDO and H218O are also different in liquid water. Their values are however less different from each other than those in air. Therefore, such a kinetic isotope effect during water freezing is less frequently observed in Nature. This paper describes a situation in Antarctica where this effect is conspicuous in icings (aufeis). In this type of ice indeed there is no relationship between δD (or δ18O) and deuterium excess whereas a clear inverse relationship between these parameters exists in ice formed by water freezing when equilibrium isotopic fractionation applies. This kinetic effect is potentially present in hail within clouds, in infiltration ice (formed during sea ice growth) and in some kinds of ground ice.
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