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We combine consistently dated benthic carbon isotopic records distributed over the entire Atlantic Ocean with numerical simulations performed by a glacial configuration of the Norwegian Earth System Model with active ocean biogeochemistry, in order to interpret the observed Cibicides δ13C changes at the stadial-interstadial transition corresponding to the end of Heinrich Stadial 4 (HS4) in terms of ocean circulation and remineralization changes. We show that the marked increase in Cibicides δ13C observed at the end of HS4 between ~2000 and 4200 m in the Atlantic can be explained by changes in nutrient concentrations as simulated by the model in response to the halting of freshwater input in the high latitude glacial North Atlantic. Our model results show that this Cibicides δ13C signal is associated with changes in the ratio of southern-sourced (SSW) versus northern-sourced (NSW) water masses at the core sites, whereby SSW is replaced by NSW as a consequence of the resumption of deep water formation in the northern North Atlantic and Nordic Seas after the freshwater input is halted. Our results further suggest that the contribution of ocean circulation changes to this signal increases from ~40 % at 2000 m to ~80 % at 4000 m. Below ~4200 m, the model shows little ocean circulation change but an increase in remineralization across the transition marking the end of HS4. The simulated lower remineralization during stadials than interstadials is particularly pronounced in deep subantarctic sites, in agreement with the decrease in the export production of carbon to the deep Southern Ocean during stadials found in previous studies.

Greenland ice cores provide information about past climate. Few impurity records covering the past 2 decades exist from Greenland. Here we present results from six firn cores obtained during a 426 km long northern Greenland traverse made in 2015 between the NEEM and the EGRIP deep-drilling stations situated on the western side and eastern side of the Greenland ice sheet, respectively. The cores (9 to 14 m long) are analyzed for chemical impurities and cover time spans of 18 to 53 years (±3 years) depending on local snow accumulation that decreases from west to east. The high temporal resolution allows for annual layers and seasons to be resolved. Insoluble dust, ammonium, and calcium concentrations in the six firn cores overlap, and the seasonal cycles are also similar in timing and magnitude across sites, while peroxide (H2O2) and conductivity both have spatial variations, H2O2 driven by the accumulation pattern, and conductivity likely influenced by sea salt. Overall, we determine a rather constant dust flux over the period, but in the data from recent years (1998–2015) we identify an increase in large dust particles that we ascribe to an activation of local Greenland sources. We observe an expected increase in acidity and conductivity in the mid-1970s as a result of anthropogenic emissions, followed by a decrease due to mitigation. Several volcanic horizons identified in the conductivity and acidity records can be associated with eruptions in Iceland and in the Barents Sea region. From a composite ammonium record we obtain a robust forest fire proxy associated primarily with Canadian forest fires (R=0.49).

We present a record of melt events obtained from the East Greenland Ice Core Project (EastGRIP) ice core in central northeastern Greenland, covering the largest part of the Holocene. The data were acquired visually using an optical dark-field line scanner. We detect and describe melt layers and lenses, seen as bubble-free layers and lenses, throughout the ice above the bubble–clathrate transition. This transition is located at 1150 m depth in the EastGRIP ice core, corresponding to an age of 9720 years b2k. We define the brittle zone in the EastGRIP ice core as that from 650 to 950 m depth, where we count on average more than three core breaks per meter. We analyze melt layer thicknesses, correct for ice thinning, and account for missing layers due to core breaks. Our record of melt events shows a large, distinct peak around 1014 years b2k (986 CE) and a broad peak around 7000 years b2k, corresponding to the Holocene Climatic Optimum. In total, we can identify approximately 831 mm of melt (corrected for thinning) over the past 10 000 years. We find that the melt event from 986 CE is most likely a large rain event similar to that from 2012 CE, and that these two events are unprecedented throughout the Holocene. We also compare the most recent 2500 years to a tree ring composite and find an overlap between melt events and tree ring anomalies indicating warm summers. Considering the ice dynamics of the EastGRIP site resulting from the flow of the Northeast Greenland Ice Stream (NEGIS), we find that summer temperatures must have been at least 3 ± 0.6 ∘C warmer during the Early Holocene compared to today.

Greenland ice cores provide information about past climate. However, the number of firn and ice cores from Greenland are limited and thus the spatial variability of the chemical impurities used as proxies is largely unconstrained. Furthermore, few impurity records covering the past two decades exist from Greenland. We have by means of Continuous Flow analysis investigated 6 shallow firn cores obtained in Northern Greenland as part of the NEEM to EastGRIP traverse in 2015. The oldest reach back to 1966. The annual mean and quartiles of the insoluble dust, ammonium, and calcium concentrations in the 6 firn cores spanning a distance of 426 km overlap, and also the seasonal cycles have similar peaks in timing and magnitude across sites. Peroxide (H2O2) is accumulation dependent and varies from site to site and conductivity, likely influenced by sea salts, also vary spatially. The temporal variability of the records is further assessed. We find no evidence for increases in total dust concentration, but find an increase in the large dust particle fluxes that we contribute to an activation of Greenland local sources in the recent years (1998–2015). We observe the expected acid and conductivity increase in the mid 70’s as a result of anthropogenic contamination and the following decrease due to mitigation. After detrending using the five year average the conductivity and acid records several volcanic horizons were identified and associated with Icelandic eruptions and volcanic eruptions in the Barents sea region. By creating a composite based on excess ammonium compared to the five year running average, we obtain a robust forest fire proxy associated primarily with Canadian forest fires (R = 0.51). We also note that the peak ammonium in the individual firn cores appear more scattered between cores than the peak volcanic layers, suggesting that the forest fire signal is more dispersed in the atmosphere than the acid from volcanic eruptions.

This study presents simulations of Greenland surface melt for the Eemian interglacial period (∼130 000 to 115 000 years ago) derived from regional climate simulations with a coupled surface energy balance model. Surface melt is of high relevance due to its potential effect on ice core observations, e.g., lowering the preserved total air content (TAC) used to infer past surface elevation. An investigation of surface melt is particularly interesting for warm periods with high surface melt, such as the Eemian interglacial period. Furthermore, Eemian ice is the deepest and most compressed ice preserved on Greenland, resulting in our inability to identify melt layers visually. Therefore, simulating Eemian melt rates and associated melt layers is beneficial to improve the reconstruction of past surface elevation. Estimated TAC, based on simulated melt during the Eemian, could explain the lower TAC observations. The simulations show Eemian surface melt at all deep Greenland ice core locations and an average of up to ∼30 melt days per year at Dye-3, corresponding to more than 600 mm water equivalent (w.e.) of annual melt. For higher ice sheet locations, between 60 and 150 mmw.e.yr-1 on average are simulated. At the summit of Greenland, this yields a refreezing ratio of more than 25 % of the annual accumulation. As a consequence, high melt rates during warm periods should be considered when interpreting Greenland TAC fluctuations as surface elevation changes. In addition to estimating the influence of melt on past TAC in ice cores, the simulated surface melt could potentially be used to identify coring locations where Greenland ice is best preserved.

Although it has been demonstrated that the speed and magnitude of the recent Arctic sea ice decline is unprecedented for the past 1450 years, few records are available to provide a paleoclimate context for Arctic sea ice extent. Bromine enrichment in ice cores has been suggested to indicate the extent of newly formed sea ice areas. Despite the similarities among sea ice indicators and ice core bromine enrichment records, uncertainties still exist regarding the quantitative linkages between bromine reactive chemistry and the first-year sea ice surfaces. Here we present a 120 000-year record of bromine enrichment from the RECAP (REnland ice CAP) ice core, coastal east Greenland, and interpret it as a record of first-year sea ice. We compare it to existing sea ice records from marine cores and tentatively reconstruct past sea ice conditions in the North Atlantic as far north as the Fram Strait (50–85∘ N). Our interpretation implies that during the last deglaciation, the transition from multi-year to first-year sea ice started at ∼17.5 ka, synchronously with sea ice reductions observed in the eastern Nordic Seas and with the increase in North Atlantic ocean temperature. First-year sea ice reached its maximum at 12.4–11.8 ka during the Younger Dryas, after which open-water conditions started to dominate, consistent with sea ice records from the eastern Nordic Seas and the North Icelandic shelf. Our results show that over the last 120 000 years, multi-year sea ice extent was greatest during Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 2 and possibly during MIS 4, with more extended first-year sea ice during MIS 3 and MIS 5. Sea ice extent during the Holocene (MIS 1) has been less than at any time in the last 120 000 years.

The mid-Pliocene is a valuable time interval for investigating equilibrium climate at current atmospheric CO2 concentrations because atmospheric CO2 concentrations are thought to have been comparable to the current day and yet the climate and distribution of ecosystems were quite different. One intriguing, but not fully understood, feature of the early to mid-Pliocene climate is the amplified Arctic temperature response and its impact on Arctic ecosystems. Only the most recent models appear to correctly estimate the degree of warming in the Pliocene Arctic and validation of the currently proposed feedbacks is limited by scarce terrestrial records of climate and environment. Here we reconstruct the summer temperature and fire regime from a subfossil fen-peat deposit on west–central Ellesmere Island, Canada, that has been chronologically constrained using cosmogenic nuclide burial dating to 3.9+1.5/-0.5 Ma. The estimate for average mean summer temperature is 15.4±0.8 ∘C using specific bacterial membrane lipids, i.e., branched glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers. This is above the proposed threshold that predicts a substantial increase in wildfire in the modern high latitudes. Macro-charcoal was present in all samples from this Pliocene section with notably higher charcoal concentration in the upper part of the sequence. This change in charcoal was synchronous with a change in vegetation that included an increase in abundance of fire-promoting Pinus and Picea. Paleo-vegetation reconstructions are consistent with warm summer temperatures, relatively low summer precipitation and an incidence of fire comparable to fire-adapted boreal forests of North America and central Siberia. To our knowledge, this site provides the northernmost evidence of fire during the Pliocene. It suggests that ecosystem productivity was greater than in the present day, providing fuel for wildfires, and that the climate was conducive to the ignition of fire during this period. The results reveal that interactions between paleo-vegetation and paleoclimate were mediated by fire in the High Arctic during the Pliocene, even though CO2 concentrations were similar to modern values.

This study examines the stable water isotope signal (δ18O) of three ice cores drilled on the Renland peninsula (east Greenland coast). While ice core δ18O measurements qualitatively are a measure of the local temperature history, the δ18O variability in precipitation actually reflects the integrated hydrological activity that the deposited ice experienced from the evaporation source to the condensation site. Thus, as Renland is located next to fluctuating sea ice cover, the transfer function used to infer past temperatures from the δ18O variability is potentially influenced by variations in the local moisture conditions. The objective of this study is therefore to evaluate the δ18O variability of ice cores drilled on Renland and examine the amount of the signal that can be attributed to regional temperature variations. In the analysis, three ice cores are utilized to create stacked summer, winter and annually averaged δ18O signals (1801–2014 CE). The imprint of temperature on δ18O is first examined by correlating the δ18O stacks with instrumental temperature records from east Greenland (1895–2014 CE) and Iceland (1830–2014 CE) and with the regional climate model HIRHAM5 (1980–2014 CE). The results show that the δ18O variability correlates with regional temperatures on both a seasonal and an annual scale between 1910 and 2014, while δ18O is uncorrelated with Iceland temperatures between 1830 and 1909. Our analysis indicates that the unstable regional δ18O–temperature correlation does not result from changes in weather patterns through strengthening and weakening of the North Atlantic Oscillation. Instead, the results imply that the varying δ18O–temperature relation is connected with the volume flux of sea ice exported through Fram Strait (and south along the coast of east Greenland). Notably, the δ18O variability only reflects the variations in regional temperature when the temperature anomaly is positive and the sea ice export anomaly is negative. It is hypothesized that this could be caused by a larger sea ice volume flux during cold years which suppresses the Iceland temperature signature in the Renland δ18O signal. However, more isotope-enabled modeling studies with emphasis on coastal ice caps are needed in order to quantify the mechanisms behind this observation. As the amount of Renland δ18O variability that reflects regional temperature varies with time, the results have implications for studies performing regression-based δ18O–temperature reconstructions based on ice cores drilled in the vicinity of a fluctuating sea ice cover.

We present a 2700-year annually resolved chronology and snow accumulation history for the Roosevelt Island Climate Evolution (RICE) ice core, Ross Ice Shelf, West Antarctica. The core adds information on past accumulation changes in an otherwise poorly constrained sector of Antarctica. The timescale was constructed by identifying annual cycles in high-resolution impurity records, and it constitutes the top part of the Roosevelt Island Ice Core Chronology 2017 (RICE17). Validation by volcanic and methane matching to the WD2014 chronology from the WAIS Divide ice core shows that the two timescales are in excellent agreement. In a companion paper, gas matching to WAIS Divide is used to extend the timescale for the deeper part of the core in which annual layers cannot be identified. Based on the annually resolved timescale, we produced a record of past snow accumulation at Roosevelt Island. The accumulation history shows that Roosevelt Island experienced slightly increasing accumulation rates between 700 BCE and 1300 CE, with an average accumulation of 0.25±0.02 m water equivalent (w.e.) per year. Since 1300 CE, trends in the accumulation rate have been consistently negative, with an acceleration in the rate of decline after the mid-17th century. The current accumulation rate at Roosevelt Island is 0.210±0.002 m w.e. yr−1 (average since 1965 CE, ±2σ), and it is rapidly declining with a trend corresponding to 0.8 mm yr−2. The decline observed since the mid-1960s is 8 times faster than the long-term decreasing trend taking place over the previous centuries, with decadal mean accumulation rates consistently being below average. Previous research has shown a strong link between Roosevelt Island accumulation rates and the location and intensity of the Amundsen Sea Low, which has a significant impact on regional sea-ice extent. The decrease in accumulation rates at Roosevelt Island may therefore be explained in terms of a recent strengthening of the ASL and the expansion of sea ice in the eastern Ross Sea. The start of the rapid decrease in RICE accumulation rates observed in 1965 CE may thus mark the onset of significant increases in regional sea-ice extent.

Thanks to its optimal location on the northern Brazilian margin, core MD09-3257 records both ocean circulation and atmospheric changes. The latter occur locally in the form of increased rainfall on the adjacent continent during the cold intervals recorded in Greenland ice and northern North Atlantic sediment cores (i.e., Greenland stadials). These rainfall events are recorded in MD09-3257 as peaks in ln(Ti ∕ Ca). New sedimentary Pa ∕ Th data indicate that mid-depth western equatorial water mass transport decreased during all of the Greenland stadials of the last 40 kyr. Using cross-wavelet transforms and spectrogram analysis, we assess the relative phase between the MD09-3257 sedimentary Pa ∕ Th and ln(Ti ∕ Ca) signals. We show that decreased water mass transport between a depth of ∼1300 and 2300 m in the western equatorial Atlantic preceded increased rainfall over the adjacent continent by 120 to 400 yr at Dansgaard–Oeschger (D–O) frequencies, and by 280 to 980 yr at Heinrich-like frequencies. We suggest that the large lead of ocean circulation changes with respect to changes in tropical South American precipitation at Heinrich-like frequencies is related to the effect of a positive feedback involving iceberg discharges in the North Atlantic. In contrast, the absence of widespread ice rafted detrital layers in North Atlantic cores during D–O stadials supports the hypothesis that a feedback such as this was not triggered in the case of D–O stadials, with circulation slowdowns and subsequent changes remaining more limited during D–O stadials than Heinrich stadials.