NOAA/WDS Paleoclimatology - Plateau Remote, Antarctica d18O Data during the last 4000 years

STUDY NOTES: This dataset was contributed as part of the Temperature-12k project (https://doi.org/10.25921/4RY2-G808). Data were contributed to the project from the original data generators, who are listed in the Investigator field of this template file. Additional notes regarding the use of these data in the Temperature-12k project can be found in the LiPD file listed as an Online_Resource of this template file.
ABSTRACT SUPPLIED BY ORIGINATOR: Ice core derived proxy climate records from Antarctica suggest that decadal, century and possibly even millennial-scale temperature variations in East and West Antarctica may be temporally asynchronous. For example, records from the Antarctic Peninsula indicate a strong 20th century warming in which the high plateau of East Antarctica has not participated. Similarly, a recent Neoglacial cooling, the “Little Ice Age”, was prominent in East Antarctica, but absent in the Peninsula region. A new history of oxygen isotopic ratios (δ18O) and atmospheric dust concentrations from central East Antarctica suggests that the high inland plateau has been dominated by a cooling trend for the last 4000 years. Superimposed upon this isotopically-inferred cooling were a number of warmer events, the largest and most persistent of which occurred ≈ 3600 yr. BP and lasted several centuries. The most prominent event is a prolonged cold phase around 2200 yr. BP which is correlative with a mid-Neoglacial advance on South Georgia Island (Clapperton et al, 1989). Most intriguing are several shorter-term (multi-centennial scale) δ18O oscillations which are similar in magnitude to the glacial-interglacial transition in Antarctic ice cores. Although it is impossible to discount the effect of wind scouring and re-deposition in this low snow accumulation region, this 4000-year history raises important questions about the climate history on the high inland plateau during the last half of the Holocene. Certainly, a better spatial distribution of high resolution δ18O records from East Antarctica are necessary to determine the extent to which the Plateau Remote record is spatially representative.