Summary
Antarctic ice core records offer a key resource for understanding late Holocene climate in the high latitude Southern Hemisphere, and potentially beyond. Recently efforts to synthesise available data have been fostered in the framework of the IPICS 2k network and the IGBP-PAGES’ Antarctica2k initiative, in conjunction with the HOLOCLIP project and the wider community. The IPICS/PAGES grouping is working toward an extensive synthesis that will bring together as many records as possible for the last 2ka in multiproxy (i.e. multi-tracer) reconstructions of temperature, precipitation and possibly other fields, and this work is ongoing. To date, the effort has been targeted on the first-order task of a high-resolution temperature reconstruction for the Antarctic over the past 2ka, for comparison with other continental reconstructions. This work has produced an overall reconstruction for Antarctica from 9 well-dated and synchronised ice core water isotope records as well as individual West Antarctic and East Antarctic reconstructions. This talk will outline the goals and progress of the 2k network project, and illustrate some of the findings so far. The overall reconstruction shows a relatively uniform record over the 2ka period with an overall cooling trend through most of the period, being more pronounced in West Antarctica than East Antarctica. Comparison with other reconstructions globally shows some similarity and potential responses to volcanic and solar forcing. However, the majority of warm and cold decadal scale events could not be attributed to either volcanic or solar forcing, and it appears that unforced internal variability is the dominant cause of decal scale variability. The talk will conclude by considering some of the challenges in making better use of the wide array of proxy data available, looking at potential ways forward, and identifying key areas where further data are required.
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