Synchronous Change of Atmospheric CO2 and Antarctic Temperature During the Last Deglacial Warming
No Leader to Follow
Changes in the concentration of atmospheric CO2 and surface air temperature are closely related. However, temperature can influence atmospheric CO2 as well as be influenced by it. Studies of polar ice cores have concluded that temperature increases during periods of rapid warming have preceded increases in CO2 by hundreds of years. Parrenin et al. (p. 1060; see the Perspective by Brook) present a revised age scale for the atmospheric component of Antarctic ice cores, based on the isotopic composition of the N2 that they contain, and suggest that temperature and CO2 changed synchronously over four intervals of rapid warming during the last deglaciation.
Abstract
Understanding the role of atmospheric CO2 during past climate changes requires clear knowledge of how it varies in time relative to temperature. Antarctic ice cores preserve highly resolved records of atmospheric CO2 and Antarctic temperature for the past 800,000 years. Here we propose a revised relative age scale for the concentration of atmospheric CO2 and Antarctic temperature for the last deglacial warming, using data from five Antarctic ice cores. We infer the phasing between CO2 concentration and Antarctic temperature at four times when their trends change abruptly. We find no significant asynchrony between them, indicating that Antarctic temperature did not begin to rise hundreds of years before the concentration of atmospheric CO2, as has been suggested by earlier studies.
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Supplementary Material
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References and Notes
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Science
Volume 339 | Issue 6123
1 March 2013
1 March 2013
Copyright
Copyright © 2013, American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Submission history
Received: 20 June 2012
Accepted: 9 January 2013
Published in print: 1 March 2013
Acknowledgments
We thank O. Watanabe, B. Stenni, and EPICA community members for giving access to, respectively, the DF1, TALDICE, and EDML isotopic data; L. Loulergue, D. Buiron, and T. Blunier for giving access to, respectively, the EDC-EDML, TALDICE, and GRIP CH4 data; G. Dreyfus for giving access to the δ15N isotopic data; and G. Delaygue, J. Chappellaz, S. Barker, and A. Ganopolski for helpful discussions. This work greatly benefited from constructive comments by two anonymous reviewers. This work had support from the French Agence Nationale de la Recherche (project ANR-07-BLAN-0125 "Dome A" and ANR-09-SYSC-001 "ADAGE"). This work is a contribution to EPICA, a joint European Science Foundation/European Commission scientific program, funded by the European Union and by national contributions from Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Main logistical support was provided by the Institut Paul Emile Victor and the Programma Nazionale Ricerche in Antartide at Dome C. We thank the technical teams in the field and at the different laboratories. This is EPICA publication no. 291.
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