Natural and anthropogenic climate change Lessons from ice cores

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1 Natural and anthropogenic climate change Lessons from ice cores Eric Wolff British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge ASE Annual Conference 2011; ESTA/ESEU lecture

2 Outline What is British Antarctic Survey (BAS), who am I? Why the past, why ice cores? How do we collect ice cores? How do they work? 3 examples of what we have learnt Future plans

3

4 Climate: the polar regions are Iconic: undergoing changes visible at planetary scale

5 Arctic sea ice decline 14 Sep 2007 NOAA and NSIDC data 05 Sep 1980

6 Climate: the polar regions are Iconic: undergoing changes visible at planetary scale A centre of action: due to polar amplification of climate At the root of important impacts (especially sea level change) Vital sources of information about how the climate system works

7 Palaeoclimate/palaeoatmosphere Why do we need to understand the past? Curiosity What? When? Why? Where? Processes Observe how the climate/earth system responded under conditions different to those of today Model validation does the world behave the way models suggest (in ways that matter for the future)?

8 Criteria for sedimentary records Essential Monotonic chronological sequence Some feature of it that changes in response to changes in the parameter you want (for example, temperature) Good signal to noise (temperature is the dominant factor controlling variability) Robust calibration/transfer function Desirable Good temporal resolution Length of record Geographical spread of available records Cheap and simple collection and analysis

9 Palaeo records Historical records Tree rings Lakes -levels and sediments Peat Marine sediments Ice cores Other chronological sequences (e.g. corals) Advantages and disadvantages to each

10 Ice cores isotopic content, gases, chemistry, precipitation Well-dated Annual resolution at some sites About 800 ka (Antarctic) and 120 ka (Greenland) available Atmospheric signals Many variables on same core (1 ka = 1000 years) Dating becomes much poorer in sites with low snow accumulation rate Ice cores are geographically limited and deep cores are expensive to obtain

11 Where can we collect ice cores? Permanent ice cover, no significant melting, positive snow accumulation i.e. Polar regions, high altitude mountain glaciers

12 The ice core record One of many sedimentary records Very good at recording the atmosphere 800,000 years (Antarctic) and 123,000 years (Greenland) Accumulation zone Flow lines Ablation zone Bedrock

13

14 Video courtesy of Lucia Simion (not included in this version)

15 Signals in ice cores The snow contains information about the atmosphere in three forms: 1. The isotopic content of the water molecules themselves ( 18 O/ 16 O and D/H) is determined mainly by the temperature at the time of snowfall

16 2. Soluble and insoluble impurities are trapped at the surface by falling snow, dry deposition and gaseous uptake onto the surface

17 3. As the snow gets deeper, pressure turns loose snow into solid ice with trapped air bubbles. The bubbles contain a sample of stable gases from the atmosphere: e.g CO 2

18 The basic argument of greenhouse warming Physics tells us that increasing the concentrations of greenhouse gases traps heat and causes climate on average to warm The concentration of major greenhouse gases has increased significantly due to human activities

19 CO 2 has increased Mauna Loa atmospheric Law Dome (Etheridge et al., 1996) Siple (Friedli et al., 1986) EPICA DML (Siegenthaler et al., 2005) S. Pole (Siegenthaler et al., 2005) CO 2 / ppmv Age / year AD

20 And so has methane (CH 4 ) MacFarling Meure et al. (2006); Etheridge et al. (1998) Ice and firn air Line is Cape Grim air Etheridge et al 1998, JGR 103, CH 4 / ppbv Age / years AD

21 European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica (EPICA) 60 S Berkner Island Byrd Siple Dome 0km 1,000km 2,000km Dronning Maud Land 80 S Taylor Dome Dome F 70 S Vostok Law Dome Dome C Dome C 75ºS 3233 m asl ~25 kg m -2 yr -1 Mean T:-54.5ºC DML 75ºS 2892 m asl ~64 kg m -2 yr -1 Mean T:-44.6ºC

22 Depth reached 3270 m (bedrock 3275 m) Best estimate of useable age ~800 ka Dome C

23

24 Estimated Antarctic temperature 5 Temperature relative to last thousand years / C Age / thousands of years before present 0 EPICA Community Members, Nature, 429, , 2004; Jouzel et al., Science, 317, , 2007.

25 ~100 ka cycles of warm and cold (warm is short) Tendency to stronger cycles in later part of period Estimated Antarctic temperature Every 5 warm period is different! Temperature relative to last thousand years / C Age / thousands of years before present 0 EPICA Community Members, Nature, 429, , 2004; Jouzel et al., Science, 317, , 2007.

26 What does CO 2 do in a changing climate? CO 2 / ppmv Lüthi et al 2008 Temperature relative to last thousand years / C Age / thousands of years before present 0 CO 2 responsible for 30-50% of the glacial-interglacial warming probably controlled mainly through processes in the Southern Ocean

27 CO 2 / ppmv Temperature relative to last thousand years / C But we are out of the range of the last 800 ka In rate as well as concentration: Last termination rate was ~20 ppmv/1000 years 20 ppmv increase in last 11 years Age / thousands of years before present 0

28 Dome C detailed CO 2 Updated from Monnin et al (2001) Science 291, CO 2 / ppmv Phasing is consistent with CO 2 as an amplifier Temperature relative to last 1000 yrs / C Age / years before present 9000

29 For CH 4 (methane) also Loulergue et al 2008 CH4 / CH4 ppbv ppbv Jouzel et al Age / thousands of years before present 0 Temperature relative to last thousand years / C400

30 Many other things we can measure but δd ice / δ 18 Arboreal δd ice / O marine / δ 18 O marine / pollen / % ice cores are only part of the picture 100 Tenaghi Philippon, Greece LR04 benthic stack LR04 benthic stack EPICA Dome C EPICA Dome C Age Age / / thousands of of years before present 0

31 And Antarctica is only part of the picture EPICA Dome C EPICA Community Members, Nature, 429, , 2004; Jouzel et al, Science, 317, , δd ice / C Age / thousands of years before present 0

32 -375 Greenland Rapid Climate Change Dome C δd / NorthGRIP δ 18 O / Age / kyr BP 25 0

33 δ 18 δ 18 O / Discovery of rapid (in a human lifetime) climate shifts from a Greenland ice core (Dansgaard-Oeschger events) NorthGRIP Project Members 2004 North GRIP Project Members 2004 WARM ~10ºC COLD Age / / thousands of of years before present 0

34 Footprint of D-O events throughout northern hemisphere Greenland Atlantic SSTs Santa Barbara Basin Cariaco Basin (Venezuela) Arabian Sea?Tropical wetlands (methane)?china (dust to Greenland)

35 Clues to the mechanism Beware: time running in reverse Antarctica vs the north Blunier and Brook 2001 (Science)

36

37 Ideas about mechanism Freshwater (ice or lake drainage) to North Atlantic Changes density structure of ocean, reducing sinking Collapsed or reduced meridional overturning circulation (MOC) Cooling and atmospheric circulation changes in NH (northern hemisphere) Some warming in south (Bipolar seesaw) Restart of MOC spontaneous or forced by freshwater in Southern Ocean

38 Significance of D-O events Rapid change has occurred in the past, but as far as we know only when there are large ice sheets But models for the future do suggest changes in thermohaline circulation Need to better understand past changes and test models against them

39 Future ice core research International Partnership in Ice Core Science (IPICS) Longer records Dome C and beyond (1.5 Ma?) Older ice in Greenland (full interglacial) Detailed regional pattern for transition and Holocene around Antarctica and Arctic Spatial pattern of climate change over last 2000 years (global) Berkner Island Byrd Siple Dome 0km 1,000km 2,000km Dronning Maud Land 80 S Taylor Dome Dome F 70 S Vostok Dome C 60 S Law Dome

40 Context: longer-term cooling Age / Ma Based on Zachos et al 2001

41 Changing amplitude and period ka 100 ka δ 18 δ O 18 O / / Age Age // thousands thousands of of years years before before present 0 From marine sediments (Lisiecki and Raymo 2005 [LR04])

42 Summary ice core records A fantastic archive of our past Have provided our only clear record of recent greenhouse gas increases, as well as data on natural forcings Over longer periods shown strong link between climate and greenhouse gases Revealed existence of past rapid climate change Shows us how Earth works: needed for future prediction

43 Thank you

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