New focuses of polar ice-core study: NEEM and Dome A

Ice core records from polar regions are of great value to study long-term climate and environmental change. Greenland ice-core records are celebrated for their high resolution and have provided very important knowledge for understanding the late Quaternary palaeoclimate, especially in reference to millennial-scale abrupt climatic flips during the last glaciation. Recently, a new project to retrieve a deep ice-core from Greenland known as NEEM for North Greenland Eemian Ice Drilling, has been launched with the main target being the last interglacial period. The new core will help us understand further details of climate changes during a period of warmth as the present. Antarctic ice cores have a unique advantage in providing recovery of longer time-scale paleclimate information and hence are regarded as a crucial pillar to examine climatic cycles on the time-scale of Earth-orbital phenomena. Since the bottom ice in Dome A is estimated to be older than a million years, a deep drilling there becomes a new focus for ice core studies.

[1]  W. Dansgaard,et al.  A Flow Model and a Time Scale for the Ice Core from Camp Century, Greenland , 1969 .

[2]  H. Oeschger,et al.  An oxygen-isotope climatic record from the Devon Island ice cap, arctic Canada , 1977, Nature.

[3]  N. Reeh,et al.  A New Greenland Deep Ice Core , 1982, Science.

[4]  J. Jouzel,et al.  A 150,000-year climatic record from Antarctic ice , 1985, Nature.

[5]  J. Jouzel,et al.  Vostok ice core: a continuous isotope temperature record over the last climatic cycle (160,000 years) , 1987, Nature.

[6]  J. Jouzel,et al.  Comparison of oxygen isotope records from the GISP2 and GRIP Greenland ice cores , 1993, Nature.

[7]  R. Souchez.  Climate instability during the last interglacial period recorded in the GRIP ice core , 1993 .

[8]  J. Jouzel,et al.  Evidence for general instability of past climate from a 250-kyr ice-core record , 1993, Nature.

[9]  N. Shackleton,et al.  The astronomical theory of climate and the age of the Brunhes-Matuyama magnetic reversal , 1994 .

[10]  W. Dansgaard,et al.  The Eem Stable Isotope Record along the GRIP Ice Core and Its Interpretation , 1995, Quaternary Research.

[11]  Henrik Svensmark,et al.  Contrasting atmospheric and climate dynamics of the last-glacial and Holocene periods , 1996, Nature.

[12]  J. Severinghaus,et al.  The Holocene-Younger Dryas Transition Recorded at Summit, Greenland , 1997 .

[13]  R. Alley,et al.  Grain‐scale processes, folding, and stratigraphic disturbance in the GISP2 ice core , 1997 .

[14]  J. Jouzel,et al.  Climate and atmospheric history of the past 420,000 years from the Vostok ice core, Antarctica , 1999, Nature.

[15]  M. Stuiver,et al.  The Taylor Dome Antarctic 18O Record and Globally Synchronous Changes in Climate 1 , 2001, Quaternary Research.

[16]  J. Jouzel,et al.  Homogeneous climate variability across East Antarctica over the past three glacial cycles , 2003, Nature.

[17]  Carlo Barbante,et al.  Eight glacial cycles from an Antarctic ice core , 2004, Nature.

[18]  J Schwander,et al.  High-resolution record of Northern Hemisphere climate extending into the last interglacial period , 2004, Nature.

[19]  H. Oerter,et al.  8 glacial cycles from an Antarctic ice core , 2004 .

[20]  J. Jouzel,et al.  EPICA DOME C: 800 000 YEARS OF CLIMATE AND ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY AND RELATIONSHIP WITH ORBITAL PARAMETERS , 2006 .

[21]  Vincent R. Gray.  Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis Summary for Policymakers , 2007 .

[22]  N. Jones.  Polar Research: Buried treasure , 2007, Nature.

[23]  H. L. Miller,et al.  Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis , 2007 .

[24]  Jiawen Ren,et al.  Recent accumulation rate at Dome A, Antarctica , 2007 .

[25]  效存德,et al.  南极冰盖最高点满足钻取最古老冰芯的必要条件: Dome A最新实测结果 , 2007 .

[26]  Takao Kameda,et al.  Surface characteristics at Dome A, Antarctica: first measurements and a guide to future ice-coring sites , 2008, Annals of Glaciology.