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Science 29 October 1999:
Vol. 286. no. 5441, pp. 934 - 937
DOI: 10.1126/science.286.5441.934
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Reports

16°C Rapid Temperature Variation in Central Greenland 70,000 Years Ago

C. Lang, 1* M. Leuenberger, 1* J. Schwander, 1 S. Johnsen 23

Variations in the 29N2/28N2 ratio of air bubbles trapped in polar ice cores and their relation to variations of the 18O/16O of the ice allow past surface temperature variations and ice age-gas age differences to be determined. High-resolution measurements of 29N2/28N2 in Dansgaard-Oeschger event 19 (around 70,000 years before the present) in ice from Central Greenland show that at the beginning of the event, the ice age-gas age difference was 1090 ± 100 years. With the use of a combined firn densification, temperature, and gas diffusion model, the delta 18Oice-temperature coefficient alpha  was determined to be 0.42 ± 0.05 per mil per kelvin. This coefficient implies a mean surface temperature change of 16.0 kelvin (between 14.3 and 18.1 kelvin), which differs substantially from values derived from borehole temperatures and modern spatial delta 18Oice-surface temperature correlations.

1 Climate and Environmental Physics, Physics Institute, University of Bern, Sidlerstrasse 5, Bern CH-3012, Switzerland.
2 Niels Bohr Institute, Department of Geophysics, University of Copenhagen, Juliane Maries Vej 30, DK-2100 Copenhagen, Denmark.
3 Science Institute, University of Iceland, Dunhaga 3, IS-107 Reykjavik, Iceland.
*   To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: lang{at}climate.unibe.ch (C.L.) or leuenberger{at}climate.unibe.ch (M.L.)

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