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Climate and atmospheric history of the past 420,000 years from the Vostok ice core, Antarctica
J. R. Petit*, J. Jouzel, D. Raynaud*, N. I. Barkov, J.-M. Barnola*, I. Basile*, M. Bender, J. Chappellaz*, M. Davisk,G. Delaygue, M. Delmotte*, V. M. Kotlyakov, M. Legrand*, V. Y. Lipenkov, C. Lorius*,L.Ppin*, C. Ritz*,E. Saltzmank & M. Stievenard
* Laboratoire de Glaciologie et Gophysique de lEnvironnement, CNRS, BP96, 38402, Saint Martin dHres Cedex, France Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de lEnvironnement (UMR CEA/CNRS 1572), LOrme des Merisiers, Bt. 709, CEA Saclay, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex, France Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute, Beringa Street 38, 199397, St Petersburg, Russia Department of Geosciences, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544-1003, USAk Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, University of Miami, 4600 Rickenbacker Causeway, Miami, Florida 33149, USA
Institute of Geography, Staromonetny, per 29, 109017, Moscow, Russia
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The recent completion of drilling at Vostok station in East Antarctica has allowed the extension of the ice record of atmospheric composition and climate to the past four glacialinterglacial cycles. The succession of changes through each climate cycle and termination was similar, and atmospheric and climate properties oscillated between stable bounds. Interglacial periods differed in temporal evolution and duration. Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane correlate well with Antarctic air-temperature throughout the record. Present-day atmospheric burdens of these two important greenhouse gases seem to have been unprecedented during the past 420,000 years.
The late Quaternary period (the past one million years) is punctuated by a series of large glacialinterglacial changes with cycles that last about 100,000 years (ref. 1). Glacialinterglacial climate changes are documented by complementary climate records1,2
largely derived from deep sea sediments, continental deposits of ora, fauna and loess, and ice cores. These studies have documented the wide range of climate variability on Earth. They have shown that much of the variability occurs with periodicities corresponding to that of the precession, obliquity and eccentricity of the Earths orbit1,3. But understanding how the climate system responds to this initial orbital forcing is still an important issue in palaeoclimatology, in particular for the generally strong [H11011]100,000-year (100-kyr) cycle.
Ice cores give access to palaeoclimate series that includes local temperature and precipitation rate, moisture source conditions, wind strength and aerosol uxes of...