Submitted on February 8, 2007
Accepted on June 11, 2007
Orbital and Millennial Antarctic Climate Variability over the Past 800,000 Years
J. Jouzel 1*,
V. Masson-Delmotte 1,
O. Cattani 1,
G. Dreyfus 1,
S. Falourd 1,
G. Hoffmann 1,
B. Minster 1,
J. Nouet 1,
J. M. Barnola 2,
J. Chappellaz 2,
H. Fischer 3,
J. C. Gallet 2,
S. Johnsen 4,
M. Leuenberger 5,
L. Loulergue 2,
D. Luethi 5,
H. Oerter 3,
F. Parrenin 2,
G. Raisbeck 6,
D. Raynaud 2,
A. Schilt 5,
J. Schwander 5,
E. Selmo 7,
R. Souchez 8,
R. Spahni 5,
B. Stauffer 5,
J. P. Steffensen 2,
B. Stenni 9,
T. F. Stocker 5,
J. L. Tison 8,
M. Werner 10,
E. W. Wolff 11
1 LSCE/IPSL, CEA-CNRS-UVSQ, CE Saclay, 91191, Gif-sur-Yvette, France.
2 LGGE, CNRS/UJF, BP96, 38402, St Martin d'Hères, France.
3 Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, Columbusstrasse, D27568, Bremerhaven, Germany.
4 Department of Geophysics, Juliane Maries Vej 30, University of Copenhagen, DK-2100, Copenhagen, Denmark; Science Institute, University of Reykjavik, Dunhaga 3, Reykjavik 107, Iceland.
5 Physics Institute, University of Bern, Sidlerstrasse 5, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland.
6 CSNSM/IN2P3/CNRS, Bat 108, 91405, Orsay, France; Department of Earth Sciences, University of Parma, Parma, Italy.
7 Department of Earth Sciences, University of Parma, Parma, Italy.
8 Département des Sciences de la Terre et de l'Environnement, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium.
9 Department of Geological, Environmental and Marine Sciences, University of Trieste, Trieste, Italy.
10 Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena, Germany.
11 British Antarctic Survey, High Cross, Madingley Road, Cambridge, CB3 0ET, UK.
* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
J. Jouzel , E-mail: jean.jouzel{at}cea.fr
A high-resolution deuterium profile is now available along the entire EPICA Dome C ice core, extending this climate record back to Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 20.2, ~800,000 years ago. Experiments performed with an atmospheric General Circulation Model including water isotopes support its temperature interpretation. The general correspondence between Dansgaard/Oeschger events and their smoothed Antarctic counterparts is assessed for this Dome C record showing the presence of such features with similar amplitudes during previous glacial periods. We suggest that the interplay between obliquity and precession accounts for the variable intensity of interglacial periods in ice core records.
