Tracy Mashiotta

Tropical Glacier and Ice Core Evidence of Climate Change on Annual to Millennial Time Scales

This paper examines the potential of the stable isotopic ratios, 18O/16O (δ 18Oice)and 2H/1H (δ Dice), preserved in mid to low latitude glaciers as a toolfor paleoclimate reconstruction. Ice cores are particularly valuable as they contain additional data, such as dust concentrations, aerosol chemistry, and accumulation rates, that can be combined with the isotopic information to assist with inferences about the regional climate conditions prevailing at the time of deposition. We use a collection of multi-proxy ice core histories to explore the δ 18O-climate relationship over the last 25,000 years that includes both Late Glacial Stage (LGS) and Holocene climate conditions. These results suggest that on centennial to millennial time scales atmospheric temperature is the principal control on the δ 18Oice of the snowfall that sustains these high mountainice fields.Decadally averaged δ 18Oice records from threeAndean and three Tibetan ice cores are composited to produce a low latitude δ 18Oice history for the last millennium. Comparison ofthis ice core composite with the Northern Hemisphere proxy record (1000–2000A.D.) reconstructed by Mann et al. (1999) and measured temperatures(1856–2000) reported by Jones et al. (1999) suggests the ice cores have captured the decadal scale variability in the global temperature trends. These ice cores show a 20th century isotopic enrichment that suggests a large scale warming is underway at low latitudes. The rate of this isotopically inferred warming is amplified at higher elevations over the Tibetan Plateau while amplification in the Andes is latitude dependent with enrichment (warming) increasing equatorward. In concert with this apparent warming, in situobservations reveal that tropical glaciers are currently disappearing. A brief overview of the loss of these tropical data archives over the last 30 years is presented along with evaluation of recent changes in mean δ18Oice composition. The isotopic composition of precipitation should be viewed not only as a powerful proxy indicator of climate change, but also as an additional parameter to aid our understanding of the linkages between changes in the hydrologic cycle and global climate.

Holocene climate variability archived in the Puruogangri ice cap on the central Tibetan Plateau

Abstract Two ice cores (118.4 and 214.7 m in length) were collected in 2000 from the Puruogangri ice cap in the center of the Tibetan Plateau (TP) in a joint US-Chinese collaborative project. These cores yield paleoclimatic and environmental records extending through the Middle Holocene, and complement previous ice-core histories from the Dunde and Guliya ice caps in northeast and northwest Tibet, respectively, and Dasuopu glacier in the Himalaya. The high-resolution Puruogangri climate record since AD 1600 details regional temperature and moisture variability. The post-1920 period is characterized by above-average annual net balance, contemporaneous with the greatest 18O enrichment of the last 400 years, consistent with the isotopically inferred warming observed in other TP ice-core records. On longer timescales the aerosol history reveals large and abrupt events, one of which is dated ∼4.7 kyr BP and occurs close to the time of a drought that extended throughout the tropics and may have been associated with centuries-long weakening of the Asian/Indian/African monsoon system. The Puruogangri climate history, combined with the other TP ice-core records, has the potential to provide valuable information on variations in the strength of the monsoon across the TP during the Holocene.

High Resolution Ice Core Records of Late Holocene Volcanism: Current and Future Contributions from the Greenland PARCA Cores

A suite of spatially distributed, multi-century cores collected since 1995 under NASAs Program for Arctic Regional Climate Assessment (PARCA) provides an excellent archive of volcanic emissions reaching Greenland. As records of equivalent quality from higher accumulation sites in Antarctica become available, their integration will produce a richer, better temporally constrained and more climatologically valuable history of global volcanism. The Greenland PARCA cores have been accurately dated using multiple seasonally varying indicators (δ 18 O, insoluble dust, H 2 O 2 , nitrate, calcium) and the ongoing chemical analyses are providing new volcanic histories that complement the limited records that exist. The first results confirm that the sulfate aerosols from an unidentified pre-Tambora eruption called Unknown: (1) were widely dispersed across the Greenland ice sheet; (2) first arrived in the 1810 A.D. snow fall; and, (3) in 1810 A.D., the first year after the eruption (1809 A.D.), produced concentrations of excess SO 4 2-(EXS) comparable to those deposited in 1816 A.D., the first year after the eruption of Tambora in 1815 A.D. The EXS originating from the eruption of Laki craters or Lakagigar (1783 A.D.) is confined to a single year (1783 A.D.) and varies considerably across the ice sheet, primarily as a function of the local accumulation rate. Future chemical analyses of the PARCA cores promise richly detailed histories of EXS emissions from both known and yet to be identified volcanic eruptions. The high temporal resolution of these ice core records will help resolve timing issues and their broad spatial distribution will provide a more representative estimate of the EXS flux associated with a specific eruption.