Journal article
Eemian interglacial reconstructed from a Greenland folded ice core
Physics of Ice, Climate and Earth, Niels Bohr Institute, Faculty of Science, Københavns Universitet
Songdo Techno Park
Geological Survey of Canada
BritishAntarctic Survey
University ofBern
Nichols Hall
Research Organization of Information and Systems, National Institute of Polar Research
University of Iceland
Niels Bohr Institutet
Inha University
Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Uppsala University
Stockholm University
University of Colorado Boulder
IPSL
Alfred Wegener Institute - Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research
University of Washington
Nichols Halla
Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute
UJF-Grenoble 1, CNRS
Nevada System of Higher Education
IPSL, Bâtiment 701 l'Orme des Merisiers
Nagaoka University of Technology
Hokkaido University
UJF-Grenoble 1
Lund University
UC San Diego
Université libre de Bruxelles
Université Fédérale Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées
CEA-CNRS-UVSQ
Bâtiment 701 l'Orme des Merisiers
Utrecht University
Chinese Academy of Sciences
University of Bern
LGGE
UC, San Diego
University Copenhagen
2217 EES Building
Swiss Federal Research InstituteWSL
Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
United Arab Emirates University
OFLB/109
MaxWould Planck-Institute for Biogeochemistry
Swiss Federal Instituteof Technology(ETH)
Det Teknisk-Naturvidenskabelige Fakultet, Aalborg Universitet
University of Copenhagen
University of East Anglia
University ofCopenhagen
Institut for Biomedicin - Forskning og uddannelse, Vest
Geological Survey ofCanada
Oregon State University
British Antarctic Survey
CNRSa
...and 43 moreEfforts to extract a Greenland ice core with a complete record of the Eemian interglacial (130,000 to 115,000 years ago) have until now been unsuccessful. The response of the Greenland ice sheet to the warmer-than-present climate of the Eemian has thus remained unclear. Here we present the new North Greenland Eemian Ice Drilling ('NEEM') ice core and show only a modest ice-sheet response to the strong warming in the early Eemian.
We reconstructed the Eemian record from folded ice using globally homogeneous parameters known from dated Greenland and Antarctic ice-core records. On the basis of water stable isotopes, NEEM surface temperatures after the onset of the Eemian (126,000 years ago) peaked at 8 ± 4 degrees Celsius above the mean of the past millennium, followed by a gradual cooling that was probably driven by the decreasing summer insolation.
Between 128,000 and 122,000 years ago, the thickness of the northwest Greenland ice sheet decreased by 400 ± 250 metres, reaching surface elevations 122,000 years ago of 130 ± 300 metres lower than the present. Extensive surface melt occurred at the NEEM site during the Eemian, a phenomenon witnessed when melt layers formed again at NEEM during the exceptional heat of July 2012.
With additional warming, surface melt might become more common in the future.
Language: | English |
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Publisher: | Nature Publishing Group |
Year: | 2013 |
Pages: | 489-494 |
Journal subtitle: | International Weekly Journal of Science |
ISBN: | 1282331175 , 3540927050 , 3540927069 , 3642242332 , 9781282331174 , 9783540927051 , 9783540927068 and 9783642242335 |
ISSN: | 14764687 and 00280836 |
Types: | Journal article |
DOI: | 10.1038/nature11789 |
ORCIDs: | NEEM, community members , 0000-0002-6065-7747 , 0000-0003-2120-7732 , 0000-0002-5910-1549 , 0000-0003-1634-6009 , 0000-0002-9665-1339 , 0000-0002-3781-9509 , 0000-0002-4177-3611 , 0000-0003-1294-2292 , 0000-0002-5516-1093 , 0000-0002-4364-6085 , 0000-0003-1055-7235 , 0000-0002-6078-771X and 0000-0002-4794-4004 |