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Deuterium excess record in a southern Tibetan ice core and its potential climatic implications

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Abstract

A 55-m long ice core, drilled close to bedrock from Mt. Noijin Kangsang on the southern Tibetan Plateau in summer 2007, was annually dated covering the period of 1864–2006 AD. The stable isotope ratios (δ 18O and δD) of the ice core were measured and thereby the deuterium excess (d) was calculated by d = δD − 8*δ 18O for the individual ice samples. Results show that the d values of the ice samples were predominantly controlled by the moisture sources. The significant increasing trend of annual mean d values along the ice core is mainly related to the rapid warming of the tropical Indian Ocean, although the tendency is subjected to the modulation by the western-derived moisture. The decreasing Indian monsoon precipitation on the southern Tibetan Plateau, physically linked with the increasing tropical Indian Ocean SST, reduced the share of monsoon precipitation in the annual total accumulation, making an additional contribution to the significant increase of annual mean d in the Noijin Kangsang ice core with high values during the past 143 years.

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Acknowledgments

This research was jointly supported by the External Cooperation Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (grant GJHZ0960), the CAS/SAFEA International Partnership Program for Creative Research Teams (grant KZCX2-YW-T11), the National Basic Research Program of China (grant 2009CB723901), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant 41001035), and China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (grant 20090460541). NOAA_ERSST_V3 data and HadSLP2 data are provided by the NOAA/OAR/ESRL PSD, Boulder, Colorado, USA, from their Web site at http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/. We thank the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestions and comments.

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  1. Key Laboratory of Tibetan Environment Changes and Land Surface Processes, Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100085, China

    Huabiao Zhao, Baiqing Xu, Tandong Yao, Guangjian Wu, Shubiao Lin, Jing Gao & Mo Wang

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  1. Huabiao Zhao
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Zhao, H., Xu, B., Yao, T. et al. Deuterium excess record in a southern Tibetan ice core and its potential climatic implications. Clim Dyn 38, 1791–1803 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-011-1161-7

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