West Antarctica's sensitivity to natural and human-forced cl

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TitleWest Antarctica's sensitivity to natural and human-forced climate change over the HoloceneAbstractThe location and intensity of the austral westerlies strongly influence southern hemisphere precipitation and heat transport with consequences for human society and ecosystems. With future warming, global climate models project increased aridity in southern mid-latitudes related to continued poleward contraction of the austral westerlies. We utilize Antarctic ice cores to investigate past and to set the stage for the prediction of future behaviour of the westerlies. We show that Holocene West Antarctic ice core reconstructions of atmospheric circulation sensitively record naturally forced progressive as well as abrupt changes. We also show that recent poleward migration of the westerlies coincident with increased emission of greenhouse gases and the Antarctic ozone hole has led to unprecedented penetration, compared with >100,000 years ago, of air masses bringing warmth, extra-Antarctic source dust and anthropogenic pollutants into West Antarctica. Copyright 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.AcknowledgementsThis research was supported by National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs grants (0096305, 9316564, 0096299, 0424589, 0439589, 063740, 063650 and 0837883) and Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development part of the Brazilian Antarctic Program (PROANTAR), and the Chilean Antarctic Institute (INACH) and FundaciÃ³n CEQUA. We gratefully acknowledge support from: the Polar Ice Coring Office (University of Alaska Fairbanks), Ice Core Drilling Services (University of Wisconsin Madison), the 109th Air National Guard (Scotia, New York), Chilean Air Force (FACH), Raytheon Polar Services, the National Ice Core Laboratory (NICL), analytical contributions from the Climate Change Research Center (University of New Hampshire) and E. A. Meyerson (Climate Change Institute), ice core drilling by M. Wumkes (Glacier Data), M. Gerasimov and M. Waskiewicz (Ice Core Drilling Services and the Polar Ice Coring Office), and our GISP2, Siple Dome, Taylor Dome and ITASE colleagues. GISP2, Siple Dome, Taylor Dome and ITASE are archived at National Climatic Data Center (NCDC).

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1st AuthorMayewski, P.AuthorMayewski, P.Maasch, K.Dixon, D.Sneed, S.Oglesby, R.Korotkikh, E.Potocki, M.Grigholm, B.Kreutz, K.Kurbatov, A.Spaulding, N.Stager, J.Taylor, K.Steig, E.White, J.Bertler, N.Goodwin, I.Simōes, J.Jana, R.Kraus, S.Fastook, J.Year2013JournalJournal of Quaternary ScienceVolume28Number1Pages40-48DOI10.1002/jqs.2593Keywordsatmospheric circulationcarbon emissionclimate effectclimate variationglobal warminggreenhouse gasheat transferHolocenehuman activityice coreozoneprecipitation (climatology), AntarcticaWest Antarctica, rank3Author KeywordsAbrupt climate changeAntarcticaAnthropogenic activityAtmospheric circulationIce cores

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TypeArticleCitationMayewski, P., Maasch, K., Dixon, D., Sneed, S., Oglesby, R., Korotkikh, E., Potocki, M., Grigholm, B., Kreutz, K., Kurbatov, A., Spaulding, N., Stager, J., Taylor, K., Steig, E., White, J., Bertler, N., Goodwin, I., Simōes, J., Jana, Ra, R., Kraus, S. and Fastook, J. (2013). West Antarctica's sensitivity to natural and human-forced climate change over the Holocene. Journal of Quaternary Science, 28(1): 40-48 doi:10.1002/jqs.2593 IdentifierMayewski2013Relevancerank3

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Bertler, N.