Summary
Continuous high-resolution oxygen isotope measurements (¥ä18Oice) have been made along the entire length of the Dome Summit South (DSS) ice core from Law Dome (LD), Antarctica, spanning the past 90ky. This high-resolution ¥ä18Oice record reveals the climate history for coastal East Antarctica over this period. The overall ¥ä18Oice record during the glacial is similar to the shape and timing of other major East Antarctic records. The LD ¥ä18Oice during the glacial- Holocene transition exhibits an overall warming trend, interrupted by a millennial scale Antarctic Cold Reversal (ACR). The timing of the onset of the ACR at LD differs from other East Antarctic records, starting earlier. The LD ¥ä18Oice during the Holocene is marked by a pronounced ¡®warm¡¯ peak in ¥ä18Oice at ~9.7ky, followed by cooling to ~7.5ky and a period of minimal isotope trend between 7.5ky and 3.6ky. The late Holocene shows a cooling trend from 3.6ky to ~1ky at which time an abrupt cooling event is evident. The recent 1ky is the isotopically ¡®coolest¡¯ period through the Holocene. The accumulated cooling since ~8ky is ~1¢¶, amounting to ~2-3¨¬C based on calibration estimates at LD. It is possible that elevation change during the late Holocene has contributed to this cooling although this has not been established. Comparison of the high-resolution isotopic record with meteorological data provides temperature calibrations at different temporal scales. Values of ~0.2-0.3¢¶ ¨¬C-1 are seen on interannual timescales with a tendency to larger values over longer averaging times. This shows that spatially derived calibrations (typically ~0.7¢¶ ¨¬C-1) used for central Antarctica are not suitable at LD.