Eemian interglacial reconstructed from a Greenland folded ice core

Efforts 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.

Kenji Kawamura | Sivaprasad Gogineni | Emmanuel Witrant | Mai Winstrup | John Paden | Konrad Steffen | Hans-Christian Steen-Larsen | Jean-Louis Tison | Dorthe Dahl-Jensen | James W. C. White | Sebastian B. Simonsen | Emilie Capron | Thomas F. Stocker | Frank Pattyn | Christine S. Hvidberg | Daniel Steinhage | Aslak Grinsted | Philippe Huybrechts | David A. Fisher | Peter Köhler | Christian Panton | Mary R. Albert | Frank Wilhelms | R. S. W. van de Wal | Dominique Raynaud | Jean Jouzel | Anders Svensson | Heinz Miller | Ala Aldahan | Sune Olander Rasmussen | Bo M Vinther | Sigfus J Johnsen | Matthias Bigler | Kumiko Goto-Azuma | Margareta Hansson | Anna Wegner | Jakob Schwander | Eric W. Wolff | Nanna B. Karlsson | Nobuhiko Azuma | Thomas Laepple | Catherine Ritz | Valérie Masson-Delmotte | Aurélien Quiquet | William T. Sturges | Sepp Kipfstuhl | Ivana Cvijanovic | Thomas Röckmann | Hubertus Fischer | Vladimir Ya. Lipenkov | Carlton J. Leuschen | Markus Leuenberger | Myriam Guillevic | J. Tison | C. Buizert | J. Severinghaus | T. Stocker | J. Jouzel | V. Masson‐Delmotte | F. Pattyn | C. Ritz | V. Lipenkov | K. Steffen | W. Sturges | E. Witrant | J. McConnell | A. Aldahan | M. Leuenberger | J. Schwander | D. Raynaud | H. Fischer | T. Laepple | J. Paden | C. Panton | R. V. D. Wal | T. Röckmann | G. Possnert | P. Köhler | K. Kawamura | B. Vinther | E. Wolff | B. Vaughn | J. White | J. Rosen | E. Brook | T. Blunier | V. Gkinis | J. Chappellaz | A. Schilt | S. Schüpbach | A. Grinsted | C. Leuschen | J. Uetake | P. Ditlevsen | S. Johnsen | H. Clausen | D. Dahl-Jensen | C. Hvidberg | A. Sveinbjörnsdóttir | M. Hirabayashi | M. Koutnik | S. Gogineni | D. Fisher | J. Steffensen | R. Mulvaney | P. Huybrechts | T. Sowers | A. Wegner | P. Vallelonga | H. Kjær | D. Steinhage | A. Quiquet | R. V. D. van de Wal | O. Maselli | A. Svensson | C. Xiao | J. Zheng | J. Petit | N. Karlsson | E. Waddington | S. Rasmussen | T. Popp | F. Wilhelms | K. Pol | E. Capron | A. Landais | J. Bourgeois | M. Winstrup | N. Azuma | K. Goto‐Azuma | Y. Iizuka | T. Kuramoto | A. Miyamoto | P. Langen | David Balslev-Clausen | C. Sapart | M. Prokopiou | P. Sperlich | P. Martinerie | D. Leuenberger | H. Miller | M. Bigler | M. Hansson | Robert Mulvaney | S. Simonsen | Jeffrey P. Severinghaus | Edward J. Brook | Jérôme A Chappellaz | Peter D. Ditlevsen | Árny E. Sveinbjörnsdóttir | I. Weikusat | S. Kipfstuhl | D. Samyn | R. Muscheler | Joseph R. McConnell | Thomas Blunier | E. D. Waddington | Ilka Weikusat | M. Albert | H. Steen‐Larsen | S. Gogineni | I. Cvijanovic | Patricia Martinerie | S. Davies | I. Seierstad | Vasileios Gkinis | Paul Vallelonga | Siwan M. Davies | Raimund Muscheler | Simon G. Sheldon | G. Possnert | Daiana Leuenberger | M. Rubino | Bruce H. Vaughn | A. Solgaard | Peter L. Langen | David Balslev-Clausen | Matthias Baumgartner | Ann-Marie Berggren | T. Binder | Jocelyne Bourgeois | S. L. Buchardt | Christo Buizert | J. Chung | H. B. Clausen | Olivier Eicher | L. G. Fleet | Gideon Gfeller | H. Gudlaugsdottir | Steffen B. Hansen | Motohiro Hirabayashi | S. Hong | S. D. Hur | Yoshinori Iizuka | Theo M. Jenk | T. R. Jones | K. Keegan | E. Kettner | Helle Astrid Kjær | Michelle Koutnik | Takayuki Kuramoto | Amaelle Landais | L. B. Larsen | J. Li | Olivia J. Maselli | Olivia Mini | A. Miyamoto | M. Montagnat-Rentier | Anais Orsi | J. R. Petit | K. Pol | Trevor Popp | Frédéric Prié | M. Prokopiou | J. Ren | C. Reutenauer | Julia Rosen | Mauro Rubino | Oleg Rybak | Denis Samyn | Célia Sapart | Adrian Schilt | A. M. Z. Schmidt | Simon Schüpbach | Inger K Seierstad | Jesper Sjolte | Anne M. Solgaard | Todd Sowers | Peter Sperlich | J. P. Steffensen | C. Stowasser | A. S. Sturevik | J. Uetake | G. van der Wel | C. Xiao | J. Zheng | A. Orsi | L. Fleet | A. Schmidt | J. Sjolte | S. Hur | F. Prié | V. Lipenkov | T. Jenk | M. Baumgartner | Ann-Marie Berggren | T. Binder | J. Chung | O. Eicher | G. Gfeller | H. Gudlaugsdottir | M. Guillevic | S. B. Hansen | S. Hong | K. Keegan | E. Kettner | J. Li | O. Mini | M. Montagnat-Rentier | J. Ren | C. Reutenauer | O. Rybak | C. Stowasser | G. V. Wel | W. T. Sturges | H. Fischer | H. Miller | Y. Iizuka | R. Wal | J. White | A. Svensson | D. Balslev-Clausen | V. Gkinis | D. M. R. A. N. D. M. A.-M. M. T. T. J. C. E. J. S. L. Dahl-Jensen Albert Aldahan Azuma Balslev-Claus | M. Bigler | M. Rubino | S. Sheldon | G. van der Wel | G. V. D. Wel | N. Community | Inger K. Seierstad

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