Marc Delmotte

A Review of Antarctic Surface Snow Isotopic Composition: Observations, Atmospheric Circulation, and Isotopic Modeling*

A database of surface Antarctic snow isotopic composition is constructed using available measurements, with an estimate of data quality and local variability. Although more than 1000 locations are documented, the spatial coverage remains uneven with a majority of sites located in specific areas of East Antarctica. The database is used to analyze the spatial variations in snow isotopic composition with respect to geographical characteristics (elevation, distance to the coast) and climatic features (temperature, accumulation) and with a focus on deuterium excess. The capacity of theoretical isotopic, regional, and general circulation atmospheric models (including “isotopic” models) to reproduce the observed features and assess the role of moisture advection in spatial deuterium excess fluctuations is analyzed.

A seasonal deuterium excess signal at Law Dome, coastal eastern Antarctica: A southern ocean signature

The snow isotopic composition (δ18O and δD) of two shallow cores from the high accumulation summit region of Law Dome, east Antarctica, was measured at monthly resolution over the 1980–1992 period. While the δ18O or δD signals clearly reflect the local temperature cycle, the deuterium excess (d = δD - 8δ18O) is shifted with respect to δ18O cycle by a 4 months lag. Interpretation of this phase lag is investigated using both an Atmospheric General Circulation Model (AGCM), which includes the water isotopic cycles, and a simple isotopic model, which better describes the microphysical processes within the cloud. Using this dual approach, we show that the seasonality of δ18O and d at Law Dome summit results from a combination of the southern ocean temperature cycle (shifted by 2–3 months with respect to the local insolation) and seasonal moisture origin changes due to a strong contribution of the local ocean when ice free. Both approaches are consistent with a dominant temperate to subtropical moisture origin. We thus demonstrate from our present-day subseasonal study that the record of d in the Dome Summit South (DSS) deep ice core represents a potential tool for identifying changes in Southern Ocean temperatures and/or sea ice cover at the scale of the past thousand years.

A late medieval warm period in the Southern Ocean as a delayed response to external forcing

On the basis of long simulations performed with a three-dimensional climate model, we propose an interhemispheric climate lag mechanism, involving the long-term memory of deepwater masses. Warm anomalies, formed in the North Atlantic when warm conditions prevail at surface, are transported by the deep ocean circulation towards the Southern Ocean. There, the heat is released because of large scale upwelling, maintaining warm conditions and inducing a lagged response of about 150 years compared to the Northern Hemisphere. Model results and observations covering the first half of the second millenium suggest a delay between the temperature evolution in the Northern Hemisphere and in the Southern Ocean. The mechanism described here provides a reasonable hypothesis to explain such an interhemipsheric lag.

A tentative reconstruction of the last interglacial and glacial inception in Greenland based on new gas measurements in the Greenland Ice Core Project (GRIP) ice core

parameters. The GRIP d 18 Oice chronological sequence is obtained by comparing a new set of d 18 O of atmospheric O2 and CH4 measurements from the bottom section of the GRIP core with their counterpart in the Vostok Antarctic profiles. This comparison clearly identifies ice from the penultimate glacial maximum (MIS 6, 190–130 kyr B.P.) in the GRIP core. Further it allows rough reconstruction of the last interglacial period and of the last glacial inception in Greenland which appears to lay its Antarctic counterpart. Our data suggest that while Antarctica is already entering into a glaciation, Greenland is still experiencing a warm maximum during MIS 5e. INDEX TERMS: 1040 Geochemistry: Isotopic composition/chemistry; 1827 Hydrology: Glaciology (1863); 3344 Meteorology and Atmospheric Dynamics: Paleoclimatology; KEYWORDS: interglacial, ice cap, firn

The isotopic composition of water vapour and precipitation in Ivittuut, southern Greenland

Since September 2011, a wavelength-scanned cavity ring-down spectroscopy analyser has been remotely operated in Ivittuut, southern Greenland, providing the first record of surface water vapour isotopic composition based on continuous measurements in South Greenland and the first record including the winter season in Greenland. The comparison of vapour data with measurements of precipitation isotopic composition suggest an equilibrium between surface vapour and precipitation. δ18O and deuterium excess are generally anti-correlated and show important seasonal variations, with respective amplitudes of∼ 10 and∼ 20 ‰, as well as large synoptic variations. The data depict small summer diurnal variations. At the seasonal scale, δ18O has a minimum in November– December and a maximum in June–July, while deuterium excess has a minimum in May–June and a maximum in November. The approach of low-pressure systems towards South Greenland leads to δ18O increase (typically+5 ‰) and deuterium excess decrease (typically −15 ‰). Seasonal and synoptic variations coincide with shifts in the moisture sources, estimated using a quantitative moisture source diagnostic based on a Lagrangian back-trajectory model. The atmospheric general circulation model LMDZiso correctly captures the seasonal and synoptic variability of δ18O, but does not capture the observed magnitude of deuterium excess variability. Covariations of water vapour isotopic composition with local and moisture source meteorological parameters have been evaluated. δ18O is strongly correlated with the logarithm of local surface humidity, consistent with Rayleigh distillation processes, and with local surface air temperature, associated with a slope of ∼ 0.4 ‰◦C−1. Deuterium excess correlates with local surface relative humidity as well as surface relative humidity from the dominant moisture source area located in the North Atlantic, south of Greenland and Iceland.

Precise measurements of the total concentration of atmospheric CO2 and C13O2∕C12O2 isotopic ratio using a lead-salt laser diode spectrometer

We have developed a tunable diode laser spectrometer, called SIMCO (spectrometer for isotopic measurements of CO(2)), for determining the concentrations of (12)CO(2) and (13)CO(2) in atmospheric air, from which the total concentration of CO(2) and the isotopic composition (expressed in delta units) delta(13)CO(2) are calculated. The two concentrations are measured using a pair of lines around 2290.1 cm(-1), by fitting a line profile model, taking into account the confinement narrowing effect to achieve a better accuracy. Using the Allan variance, we have demonstrated (for an integration time of 25 s) a precision of 0.1 ppmv for the total CO(2) concentration and of 0.3[per thousand] for delta(13)CO(2). The performances on atmospheric air have been tested during a 3 days campaign by comparing the SIMCO instrument with a gas chromatograph (GC) for the measurement of the total CO(2) concentration and with an isotopic ratio mass spectrometer (MS) for the isotopic composition. The CO(2) concentration measurements of SIMCO are in very good agreement with the GC data with a mean difference of Delta(CO(2))=0.16+/-1.20 ppmv for a comparison period of 45 h and the linearity of the concentration between the two instruments is also very good (slope of correlation: 0.9996+/-0.0003) over the range between 380 and 415 ppmv. For delta(13)CO(2), the comparison with the MS data shows a larger mean difference of Delta(delta(13)CO(2))=(-1.9+/-1.2)[per thousand], which could be partly related to small residual fluctuations of the overall SIMCO instrument response.