Abstract
Future Greenland temperature evolution will affect melting of the ice sheet and associated global sea-level change. Therefore, understanding Greenland temperature variability and its relation to global trends is critical. Here, we reconstruct the last 1,000 years of central Greenland surface temperature from isotopes of N2 and Ar in air bubbles in an ice core. This technique provides constraints on decadal to centennial temperature fluctuations. We found that northern hemisphere temperature and Greenland temperature changed synchronously at periods of ~20 years and 40–100 years. This quasi-periodic multi-decadal temperature fluctuation persisted throughout the last millennium, and is likely to continue into the future.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Allegre CJ, Staudacher T, Sarda P (1987) Rare-gas systematics—formation of the atmosphere, evolution and structure of the earths mantle. Earth Planet Sci Lett 81:127–150
Alley RB, Koci BR (1990) Recent warming in central Greenland? Ann Glaciol 14:6–8
Alley RB, Mayewski PA, Sowers T, Stuiver M, Taylor KC, Clark PU (1997a) Holocene climatic instability: a prominent, widespread event 8200 yr ago. Geology 25:483–486
Alley RB, Shuman CA, Meese DA, Gow AJ, Taylor KC, Cuffey KM, Fitzpatrick JJ, Grootes PM, Zielinski GA, Ram M, Spinelli G, Elder B (1997b) Visual-stratigraphic dating of the GISP2 ice core: basis, reproducibility, and application. J Geophys Res C Oceans 102:26367–26381
Andersen KK, Ditlevsen PD, Rasmussen SO, Clausen HB, Vinther BM, Johnsen SJ, Steffensen JP (2006) Retrieving a common accumulation record from Greenland ice cores for the past 1800 years. J Geophys Res-Atmos. doi:10.1029/2005JD006765
Chylek P, Lohmann U (2005) Ratio of the Greenland to global temperature change: comparison of observations and climate modeling results. Geophys Res Lett 32. doi:10.1029/2005GL023552
Clow GD, Saltus RW, Waddington ED (1996) A new high-precision borehole-temperature logging system used at GISP2, Greenland, and Taylor Dome, Antarctica. J Glaciol 42:576–584
Craig H, Horibe Y, Sowers T (1988) Gravitational separation of gases and isotopes in polar ice caps. Science 242:1675–1678
Crowley TJ (2000) Causes of climate change over the past 1000 years. Science 289:270–277
Crowley TJ, Baum SK, Kim KY, Hegerl GC, Hyde WT (2003) Modeling ocean heat content changes during the last millennium. Geophys Res Lett 30. doi:10.1029/2003GL017801
Cuffey KM, Clow GD (1997) Temperature, accumulation, and ice sheet elevation in central Greenland through the last deglacial transition. J Geophys Res C Oceans 102:26383–26396
Cuffey KM, Clow GD, Alley RB, Stuiver M, Waddington ED, Saltus RW (1995) Large Arctic temperature-change at the Wisconsin-Holocene glacial transition. Science 270:455–458
Dahl-Jensen D, Mosegaard K, Gundestrup N, Clow GD, Johnsen SJ, Hansen AW, Balling N (1998) Past temperatures directly from the Greenland Ice Sheet. Science 282:268–271
Fisher DA, Reeh N, Clausen HB (1985) Stratigraphic noise in time series derived from ice cores. Ann Glaciol 7:76–83
Goujon C, Barnola JM, Ritz C (2003) Modeling the densification of polar firn including heat diffusion: application to close-off characteristics and gas isotopic fractionation for Antarctica and Greenland sites. J Geophys Res-Atmos 108. doi:10.1029/2002JD003319
Grachev AM, Severinghaus JP (2003a) Determining the thermal diffusion factor for Ar-40/Ar-36 in air to aid paleoreconstruction of abrupt climate change. J Phys Chem A 107:4636–4642
Grachev AM, Severinghaus JP (2003b) Laboratory determination of thermal diffusion constants for N-29(2)/N-28(2) in air at temperatures from –60 to 0 degrees C for reconstruction of magnitudes of abrupt climate changes using the ice core fossil-air paleothermometer. Geochim Cosmochim Acta 67:345–360
Grove JM (2001) The initiation of the “Little Ice Age” in regions round the North Atlantic. Clim Change 48:53–82
Grove JM (2004) Little ice ages: ancient and modern. Routledge, London
Hegerl GC, Crowley TJ, Hyde WT, Frame DJ (2006) Climate sensitivity constrained by temperature reconstructions over the past seven centuries. Nature 440:1029–1032
Hegerl GC, Crowley TJ, Allen M, Hyde WT, Pollack HN, Smerdon J, Zorita E (2007) Detection of human influence on a new, validated 1500-year temperature reconstruction. J Climate 20:650–666
Huber C, Beyerle U, Leuenberger M, Schwander J, Kipfer R, Spahni R, Severinghaus JP, Weiler K (2006) Evidence for molecular size dependent gas fractionation in firn air derived from noble gases, oxygen, and nitrogen measurements. Earth Planet Sci Lett 243:61–73
IPCC (2001) The scientific basis: contribution of working group I to the third assessment report of the intergovermental panel on climate change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Jones PD, Mann ME (2004) Climate over past millennia. Rev Geophys 42. doi:10.1029/2003RG000143
Knight JR, Allan RJ, Folland CK, Vellinga M, Mann ME (2005) A signature of persistent natural thermohaline circulation cycles in observed climate. Geophys Res Lett 32. doi:10.1029/2005GL024233
Kobashi T (2007) Greenland temperature, climate change, and human society during the last 11,600 years. Ph.D. thesis, University of California, San Diego
Kobashi T, Severinghaus J, Brook EJ, Barnola JM, Grachev A (2007) Precise timing and characterization of abrupt climate change 8,200 years ago from air trapped in polar ice. Quat Sci Rev 26:1212–1222
Kobashi T, Severinghaus JP, Barnola JM (2008a) 4 ± 1.5°C abrupt warming 11,270 years ago identified from trapped air in Greenland ice. Earth Planet Sci Lett 268:397–407
Kobashi T, Severinghaus JP, Kawamura K (2008b) Argon and nitrogen isotopes of trapped air in the GISP2 ice core during the Holocene epoch (0–11,600 B.P.): methodology and implications for gas loss processes. Geochim Cosmochim Acta 72:4675–4686
Landais A, Barnola JM, Kawamura K, Caillon N, Delmotte M, Van Ommen T, Dreyfus G, Jouzel J, Masson-Delmotte V, Minster B, Freitag J, Leuenberger M, Schwander J, Huber C, Etheridge D, Morgan V (2006) Firn-air delta N-15 in modern polar sites and glacial–interglacial ice: a model-data mismatch during glacial periods in Antarctica? Quat Sci Rev 25:49–62
Li J, Zwally HJ, Cornejo C, Yi DH (2003) Seasonal variation of snow-surface elevation in North Greenland as modeled and detected by satellite radar altimetry. Ann Glaciol 37:233–238
Luterbacher J, Rickli R, Xoplaki E, Tinguely C, Beck C, Pfister C, Wanner H (2001) The Late Maunder Minimum (1675–1715)—a key period for studying decadal scale climatic change in Europe. Clim Change 49:441–462
Mann ME, Zhang Z, Hughes MK, Bradley RS, Miller SK, Rutherford S, Ni F (2008) Proxy-based reconstructions of hemispheric and global surface temperature variations over the past two millennia. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 105:13252–13257
Mariotti A (1983) Atmospheric nitrogen is a reliable standard for natural N-15 abundance measurements. Nature 303:685–687
Mayewski PA, Meeker LD, Twickler MS, Whitlow S, Yang QZ, Lyons WB, Prentice M (1997) Major features and forcing of high-latitude northern hemisphere atmospheric circulation using a 110,000-year-long glaciochemical series. J Geophys Res C Oceans 102:26345–26366
Moberg A, Sonechkin DM, Holmgren K, Datsenko NM, Karlen W (2005) Highly variable Northern hemisphere temperatures reconstructed from low- and high-resolution proxy data. Nature 433:613–617
NASA (2009) GISS surface temperature analysis. Available at http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/
National Research Council (U.S.) Committee on Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2000 Years (2006) Surface temperature reconstructions for the last 2,000 years. National Academies Press, Washington, p xiv, 145
Oerlemans J (2005) Extracting a climate signal from 169 glacier records. Science 308:675–677
Ogilvie AEJ (1984) The past climate and sea-ice record from Iceland. 1. Data to Ad 1780. Clim Change 6:131–152
Ogilvie AEJ, Jonsson T (2001) “Little Ice Age” research: a perspective from Iceland. Clim Change 48:9–52
Schlesinger ME, Ramankutty N (1994) An oscillation in the global climate system of period 65–70 years. Nature 367:723–726
Schwander J, Sowers T, Barnola JM, Blunier T, Fuchs A, Malaize B (1997) Age scale of the air in the summit ice: implication for glacial–interglacial temperature change. J Geophys Res-Atmos 102:19483–19493
Severinghaus JP, Battle MO (2006) Fractionation of gases in polar lee during bubble close-off: new constraints from firn air Ne, Kr and Xe observations. Earth Planet Sci Lett 244:474–500
Severinghaus JP, Brook EJ (1999) Abrupt climate change at the end of the last glacial period inferred from trapped air in polar ice. Science 286:930–934
Severinghaus JP, Sowers T, Brook EJ, Alley RB, Bender ML (1998) Timing of abrupt climate change at the end of the Younger Dryas interval from thermally fractionated gases in polar ice. Nature 391:141–146
Severinghaus JP, Grachev A, Luz B, Caillon N (2003) A method for precise measurement of argon 40/36 and krypton/argon ratios in trapped air in polar ice with applications to past firn thickness and abrupt climate change in Greenland and at Siple Dome, Antarctica. Geochim Cosmochim Acta 67:325–343
Stuiver M, Grootes PM, Braziunas TF (1995) The GISP2 delta O-18 climate record of the past 16,500 years and the role of the sun, ocean, and volcanoes. Quat Res 44:341–354
Vinther BM, Andersen KK, Jones PD, Briffa KR, Cappelen J (2006) Extending Greenland temperature records into the late eighteenth century. J Geophys Res 111. doi:10.1029/2005JD006810
Zwally HJ, Jun L (2002) Seasonal and interannual variations of firn densification and ice-sheet surface elevation at the Greenland summit. J Glaciol 48:199–207
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Open Access This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0), which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.
About this article
Cite this article
Kobashi, T., Severinghaus, J.P., Barnola, JM. et al. Persistent multi-decadal Greenland temperature fluctuation through the last millennium. Climatic Change 100, 733–756 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-009-9689-9
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-009-9689-9