800,000 Years of Abrupt Climate Variability

We constructed an 800,000-year synthetic record of Greenland climate variability based on the thermal bipolar seesaw model. Our Greenland analog reproduces much of the variability seen in the Greenland ice cores over the past 100,000 years. The synthetic record shows strong similarity with the absol...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science) 2011-10, Vol.334 (6054), p.347-351
Main Authors:	Barker, Stephen, Knorr, Gregor, Edwards, R. Lawrence, Parrenin, Frédéric, Putnam, Aaron E., Skinner, Luke C., Wolff, Eric, Ziegler, Martin
Format:	Article
Language:	eng
Subjects:	Antarctic regions Climate change Climate models Climate science Earth sciences Earth, ocean, space Exact sciences and technology Global climate models Ice Ice cores Marine and continental quaternary Methane Monsoons Paleoceanography Paleoclimatology Surficial geology Thermal energy
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Summary:	We constructed an 800,000-year synthetic record of Greenland climate variability based on the thermal bipolar seesaw model. Our Greenland analog reproduces much of the variability seen in the Greenland ice cores over the past 100,000 years. The synthetic record shows strong similarity with the absolutely dated speleothem record from China, allowing us to place ice core records within an absolute timeframe for the past 400,000 years. Hence, it provides both a stratigraphic reference and a conceptual basis for assessing the long-term evolution of millennial-scale variability and its potential role in climate change at longer time scales. Indeed, we provide evidence for a ubiquitous association between bipolar seesaw oscillations and glacial terminations throughout the Middle to Late Pleistocene.
ISSN:	0036-8075 1095-9203