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Science 25 November 2005:
Vol. 310. no. 5752, pp. 1317 - 1321
DOI: 10.1126/science.1120132
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Reports

Atmospheric Methane and Nitrous Oxide of the Late Pleistocene from Antarctic Ice Cores

Renato Spahni,1 Jérôme Chappellaz,2 Thomas F. Stocker,1* Laetitia Loulergue,2 Gregor Hausammann,1 Kenji Kawamura,1{dagger} Jacqueline Flückiger,1{ddagger} Jakob Schwander,1 Dominique Raynaud,2 Valérie Masson-Delmotte,3 Jean Jouzel3

The European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica Dome C ice core enables us to extend existing records of atmospheric methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) back to 650,000 years before the present. A combined record of CH4 measured along the Dome C and the Vostok ice cores demonstrates, within the resolution of our measurements, that preindustrial concentrations over Antarctica have not exceeded 773 ± 15 ppbv (parts per billion by volume) during the past 650,000 years. Before 420,000 years ago, when interglacials were cooler, maximum CH4 concentrations were only about 600 ppbv, similar to lower Holocene values. In contrast, the N2O record shows maximum concentrations of 278 ± 7 ppbv, slightly higher than early Holocene values.

1 Climate and Environmental Physics, Physics Institute, University of Bern, Sidlerstrasse 5, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland.
2 Laboratoire de Glaciologie et Géophysique de l'Environnement (LGGE, CNRS-UJF), CNRS, 54 Rue Molières, 38402 St. Martin d'Hères, Grenoble, France.
3 Institut Pierre Simon Laplace/Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement, CEA-CNRS 1572, CE Saclay, Orme des Merisiers, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette, France.

{dagger} Present address: Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093–0244, USA.

{ddagger} Present address: Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, University of Colorado at Boulder, 450 UCB Boulder, Colorado 80309–0450, USA.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed: stocker{at}climate.unibe.ch

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