Abstract. High-resolution, well-dated climate archives provide an opportunity to investigate the dynamic interactions of climate patterns relevant for future projections.

Abstract. Black carbon aerosol (BC) emitted from natural and anthropogenic sources (e.g., wildfires, coal burning) can contribute to magnify climate warming at high latitudes by darkening snow-and ice-covered surfaces, thus lowering their albedo. Modeling the atmospheric transport and deposition of BC to the Arctic is therefore important, and historical archives of BC accumulation in polar ice can help to validate such modeling efforts. Here we present a 190-year ice-core record of refractory BC (rBC) deposition on Devon ice cap, Canada, spanning calendar years 1810-1990, the first such record ever 15 developed from the Canadian Arctic. The estimated mean deposition flux of rBC on Devon ice cap for 1963-1990 is 0.2 mg m -2 a -1 , which is low compared to most Greenland ice-core sites over the same period. The Devon ice cap rBC record also differs from existing Greenland records in that it shows no evidence of a substantial increase in rBC deposition during the early-mid 20th century, which, for Greenland, has been attributed to mid-latitude coal burning emissions. The deposition of other contaminants such as sulfate and Pb increased on Devon ice cap in the 20th century but without a concomitant rise in 20 rBC. Part of the difference with Greenland may be due to local factors such as wind scouring of winter snow at the coring site on Devon ice cap. Air back-trajectory analyses also suggest that Devon ice cap receives BC from more distant North American and Eurasian sources than Greenland, and aerosol mixing and removal during long-range transport over the Arctic Ocean likely masks some of the specific BC source-receptor relationships. Findings from this study underscore the large variability in BC aerosol deposition across the Arctic region that may arise from different transport patterns. This variability 25 needs to be accounted for when estimating the large-scale albedo lowering effect of BC deposition on Arctic snow/ice.

Abstract. High-resolution, well-dated climate archives provide an opportunity to investigate the dynamic interactions of climate patterns relevant for future projections. Here, we present data from a new, annually-dated ice core record from the eastern Ross Sea. Comparison of the Roosevelt Island Climate Evolution (RICE) ice core records with climate reanalysis data for the 1979–2012 calibration period shows that RICE records reliably capture temperature and snow precipitation variability of the region. RICE is compared with data from West Antarctica (West Antarctic Ice Sheet Divide Ice Core) and the western (Talos Dome) and eastern (Siple Dome) Ross Sea. For most of the past 2,700 years, the eastern Ross Sea was warming with perhaps increased snow accumulation and decreased sea ice extent. However, West Antarctica cooled whereas the western Ross Sea showed no significant temperature trend. From the 17th Century onwards, this relationship changes. All three regions now show signs of warming, with snow accumulation declining in West Antarctica and the eastern Ross Sea, but increasing in the western Ross Sea. Analysis of decadal to centennial-scale climate variability superimposed on the longer term trend reveal that periods characterised by opposing temperature trends between the Eastern and Western Ross Sea have occurred since the 3rd Century but are masked by longer-term trends. This pattern here is referred to as the Ross Sea Dipole, caused by a sensitive response of the region to dynamic interactions of the Southern Annual Mode and tropical forcings.

Abstract. Black carbon aerosol (BC), which is emitted from natural and anthropogenic sources (e.g., wildfires, coal burning), can contribute to magnify climate warming at high latitudes by darkening snow- and ice-covered surfaces, and subsequently lowering their albedo. Therefore, modeling the atmospheric transport and deposition of BC to the Arctic is important, and historical archives of BC accumulation in polar ice can help to validate such modeling efforts. Here we present a > 250-year ice-core record of refractory BC (rBC) deposition on Devon ice cap, Canada, spanning the years from 1735 to 1992. This is the first such record ever developed from the Canadian Arctic. The estimated mean deposition flux of rBC on Devon ice cap for 1963–1990 is 0.2 mg m−2 a−1, which is at the low end of estimates from Greenland ice cores obtained using the same analytical method ( ∼ 0.1–4 mg m−2 a−1). The Devon ice cap rBC record also differs from the Greenland records in that it shows only a modest increase in rBC deposition during the 20th century. In the Greenland records a pronounced rise in rBC is observed from the 1880s to the 1910s, which is largely attributed to midlatitude coal burning emissions. The deposition of contaminants such as sulfate and lead increased on Devon ice cap in the 20th century but no concomitant rise in rBC is recorded in the ice. Part of the difference with Greenland could be due to local factors such as melt–freeze cycles on Devon ice cap that may limit the detection sensitivity of rBC analyses in melt-impacted core samples, and wind scouring of winter snow at the coring site. Air back-trajectory analyses also suggest that Devon ice cap receives BC from more distant North American and Eurasian sources than Greenland, and aerosol mixing and removal during long-range transport over the Arctic Ocean likely masks some of the specific BC source–receptor relationships. Findings from this study suggest that there could be a large variability in BC aerosol deposition across the Arctic region arising from different transport patterns. This variability needs to be accounted for when estimating the large-scale albedo lowering effect of BC deposition on Arctic snow/ice.

We relate full waveform inversion (FWI) to processes familiar to practicing geophysicists. A key theoretical result behind FWI is that a linear update to a migration velocity model is proportional to a prestack reverse-time migration of the data residual (the difference between the actual data and data predicted by the model) where the proportionality factor must be estimated. We argue that in most real-world cases this factor will be frequency dependent, or in the time domain, it will be a convolutional wavelet. The estimation of the velocity update from the migrated section and the common process of impedance inversion are analogous, and we view FWI as a practical cycle of data modeling, migration of the data residual, and "calibration" of this migration to deduce the velocity update. The calibration step can be accomplished like a conventional impedance inversion where the migrated data residual is tied to the velocity residual (the difference between actual velocity and migration velocity) at a well. As there are a great many established algorithms for impedance inversion, so there are a plethora of possibilities for calibration. We present an extended example using the Marmousi model in which we use wave-equation migration (e.g. depth stepping) of the data residual and a simple least-squares amplitude scaling and constant phase rotation, determined at a simulated well, to calibrate the migration. We find that our approach produces a much improved velocity model in only a few iterations.