Global climate and the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) are correlated over recent glacial cycles. The combination of processes responsible for a rise in atmospheric CO2 at the last glacial termination (23,000 to 9,000 years ago), however, remains uncertain. Establishing the timing and rate of CO2 changes in the past provides critical insight into the mechanisms that influence the carbon cycle and helps put present and future anthropogenic emissions in context. Here we present CO2 and methane (CH4) records of the last deglaciation from a new high-accumulation West Antarctic ice core with unprecedented temporal resolution and precise chronology. We show that although low-frequency CO2 variations parallel changes in Antarctic temperature, abrupt CO2 changes occur that have a clear relationship with abrupt climate changes in the Northern Hemisphere. A significant proportion of the direct radiative forcing associated with the rise in atmospheric CO2 occurred in three sudden steps, each of 10 to 15 parts per million. Every step took place in less than two centuries and was followed by no notable change in atmospheric CO2 for about 1,000 to 1,500 years. Slow, millennial-scale ventilation of Southern Ocean CO2-rich, deep-ocean water masses is thought to have been fundamental to the rise in atmospheric CO2 associated with the glacial termination, given the strong covariance of CO2 levels and Antarctic temperatures. Our data establish a contribution from an abrupt, centennial-scale mode of CO2 variability that is not directly related to Antarctic temperature. We suggest that processes operating on centennial timescales, probably involving the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation, seem to be influencing global carbon-cycle dynamics and are at present not widely considered in Earth system models.

Abstract. Well-documented present-day distributions of stable water isotopes (HDO and H2180) show the existence, in middle and high latitudes, of a linear relationship between the mean annual isotope content of precipitation (/SD and/5•SO) and the mean annual temperature at the precipitation site. Paleoclimatologists have used this relationship, which is particularly well obeyed over Greenland and Antarctica, to infer paleotemperatures from ice core data. There is, however, growing evidence that spatial and temporal isotope/ surface temperature slopes differ, thus complicating the use of stable water isotopes as paleothermometers. In this paper we review empirical estimates of temporal slopes in polar regions and relevant information that can be inferred from isotope models: simple, Rayleigh-type distillation models and (particularly over Greenland) general circulation models (GCMs) fitted with isotope tracer diagnostics. Empirical estimates of temporal slopes appear consistently lower than present-day spatial slopes and are dependent on the timescale considered. This difference is most probably due to changes in the evaporative origins of moisture, changes in the seasonality of the precipitation, changes in the strength of the inversion layer, or some combination of these changes. Isotope models have not yet been used to evaluate the relative influences of these different factors. The apparent disagreement in the temporal and spatial slopes clearly makes calibrating the isotope paleothermometer difficult. Nevertheless, the use of a (calibrated) isotope paleothermometer appears justified; empirical estimates and most (though not all) GCM results support the practice of interpreting ice core isotope records in terms of local temperature changes. •

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Abstract.We present a combined heat-and ice-flow model, constrained by measurements of temperature in the Greenland Ice Sheet Project 2 (GISP2) borehole and by the GISP2 51so record and depth-age scale, which determines a

Analysis of borehole temperature and Greenland Ice Sheet Project II ice-core isotopic composition reveals that the warming from average glacial conditions to the Holocene in central Greenland was large, approximately 15°C. This is at least three times the coincident temperature change in the tropics and mid-latitudes. The coldest periods of the last glacial were probably 21 "C colder than at present over the Greenland ice sheet.

Abstract. The West Antarctic Ice Sheet Divide (WAIS Divide, WD) ice core is a newly drilled, high-accumulation deep ice core that provides Antarctic climate records of the past ∼68 ka at unprecedented temporal resolution. The upper 2850 m (back to 31.2 ka BP) have been dated using annual-layer counting. Here we present a chronology for the deep part of the core (67.8–31.2 ka BP), which is based on stratigraphic matching to annual-layer-counted Greenland ice cores using globally well-mixed atmospheric methane. We calculate the WD gas age–ice age difference (Δage) using a combination of firn densification modeling, ice-flow modeling, and a data set of δ15N-N2, a proxy for past firn column thickness. The largest Δage at WD occurs during the Last Glacial Maximum, and is 525 ± 120 years. Internally consistent solutions can be found only when assuming little to no influence of impurity content on densification rates, contrary to a recently proposed hypothesis. We synchronize the WD chronology to a linearly scaled version of the layer-counted Greenland Ice Core Chronology (GICC05), which brings the age of Dansgaard–Oeschger (DO) events into agreement with the U/Th absolutely dated Hulu Cave speleothem record. The small Δage at WD provides valuable opportunities to investigate the timing of atmospheric greenhouse gas variations relative to Antarctic climate, as well as the interhemispheric phasing of the "bipolar seesaw".

During the last interglacial period (the Eemian), global sea level was at least three metres, and probably more than five metres, higher than at present. Complete melting of either the West Antarctic ice sheet or the Greenland ice sheet would today raise sea levels by 6-7 metres. But the high sea levels during the last interglacial period have been proposed to result mainly from disintegration of the West Antarctic ice sheet, with model studies attributing only 1-2 m of sea-level rise to meltwater from Greenland. This result was considered consistent with ice core evidence, although earlier work had suggested a much reduced Greenland ice sheet during the last interglacial period. Here we reconsider the Eemian evolution of the Greenland ice sheet by combining numerical modelling with insights obtained from recent central Greenland ice-core analyses. Our results suggest that the Greenland ice sheet was considerably smaller and steeper during the Eemian, and plausibly contributed 4-5.5 m to the sea-level highstand during that period. We conclude that the high sea level during the last interglacial period most probably included a large contribution from Greenland meltwater and therefore should not be interpreted as evidence for a significant reduction of the West Antarctic ice sheet.

Abstract. Water stable isotopes in Greenland ice core data provide key paleoclimatic information, and have been compared with precipitation isotopic composition simulated by isotopically enabled atmospheric models. However, postdepositional processes linked with snow metamorphism remain poorly documented. For this purpose, monitoring of the isotopic composition (δ 18 O, δD) of near-surface water vapor, precipitation and samples of the top (0.5 cm) snow surface has been conducted during two summers (2011)(2012) at NEEM, NW Greenland. The samples also include a subset of 17 O-excess measurements over 4 days, and the measurements span the 2012 Greenland heat wave. Our observations are consistent with calculations assuming isotopic equilibrium between surface snow and water vapor. We observe a strong correlation between near-surface vapor δ 18 O and air temperature (0.85 ± 0.11 ‰ • C −1 (R = 0.76) for 2012). The correlation with air temperature is not observed in precipitation data or surface snow data. Deuterium excess (d-excess) is strongly anti-correlated with δ 18 O with a stronger slope for vapor than for precipitation and snow surface data. During nine 1-5-day periods between precipitation events, our data demonstrate parallel changes of δ 18 O and d-excess in surface snow and near-surface vapor. The changes in δ 18 O of the vapor are similar or larger than those of the snow δ 18 O. It is estimated using the CROCUS snow model that 6 to 20 % of the surface snow mass is exchanged with the atmosphere. In our data, the sign of surface snow isotopic changes is not related to the sign or magnitude of sublimation or deposition. Comparisons with atmospheric models show that day-to-day variations in near-surface vapor isotopic composition are driven by synoptic variations and changes in air mass trajectories and distillation histories. We suggest that, in between precipitation events, changes in the surface snow isotopic composition are driven by these changes in near-surface vapor isotopic composition. This is consistent with an estimated 60 % mass turnover of surface snow per day driven by snow recrystallization processes under NEEM summer surface snow temperature gradients. Our findings have implications for ice core data interpretation and model-data comparisons, and call for further process studies.