Summary
Archived in glaciers and ice sheets are long term records of dustiness. Dust impacts Earth’s radiative forcing directly by modifying the radiation budget and affecting cloud nucleation and optical properties, and indirectly through ocean fertilization which alters carbon sequestration. Because of their short atmospheric lifetimes, dust aerosol concentrations are highly variable in both time and space. The mineralogy and elemental characteristics of dust aerosols may indicate provenance and so past climate and atmospheric circulation and transport. We present continuous ice core records of continental dust deposition during recent centuries at a number of ice core sites in Greenland and Antarctica. These new records were developed using a novel ice core analytical system which allows for simultaneous measurements of more than 30 elements and chemical species. We explore the similarities and differences between the records and use model simulations to evaluate relationships between dustiness and recent climate change and land use in possible source areas.