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AGU: Geophysical Research Letters

 

Keywords

  • ice cores
  • Antarctic Peninsula
  • climate change

Index Terms

  • Cryosphere: Ice cores
  • Geographic Location: Antarctica
  • Global Change: Abrupt/rapid climate change
  • Atmospheric Processes: Paleoclimatology
  • Atmospheric Processes: Climate change and variability

Abstract

GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 36, L20704, 5 PP., 2009
doi:10.1029/2009GL040104

Ice core evidence for significant 100-year regional warming on the Antarctic Peninsula

E. R. Thomas

British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge, UK

P. F. Dennis

School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK

T. J. Bracegirdle

British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge, UK

C. Franzke

British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge, UK

We present a new 150-year, high-resolution, stable isotope record (δ 18O) from the Gomez ice core, drilled on the data sparse south western Antarctic Peninsula, revealing a ∼2.7°C rise in surface temperatures since the 1950s. The record is highly correlated with satellite-derived temperature reconstructions and instrumental records from Faraday station on the north west coast, thus making it a robust proxy for local and regional temperatures since the 1850s. We conclude that the exceptional 50-year warming, previously only observed in the northern Peninsula, is not just a local phenomena but part of a statistically significant 100-year regional warming trend that began around 1900. A suite of coupled climate models are employed to demonstrate that the 50 and 100 year temperature trends are outside of the expected range of variability from pre-industrial control runs, indicating that the warming is likely the result of external climate forcing.

Received 16 July 2009; accepted 23 September 2009; published 24 October 2009.

Citation: Thomas, E. R., P. F. Dennis, T. J. Bracegirdle, and C. Franzke (2009), Ice core evidence for significant 100-year regional warming on the Antarctic Peninsula, Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L20704, doi:10.1029/2009GL040104.

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