Antarctic Cenozoic climate history from sedimentary records:
Details of Research
TitleAntarctic Cenozoic climate history from sedimentary records: ANDRILL and beyondAbstractMounting evidence from models and geological data implies that the Antarctic Ice Sheet may behave in an unstable manner and retreat rapidly in response to a warming climate, which is a key factor motivating efforts to improve estimates of Antarctic ice volume contributions to future sea-level rise. Here, we review Antarctic cooling history since peak temperatures of the Middle Eocene Climatic Optimum (approx. 50 Ma) to provide a framework for future initiatives to recover sediment cores from subglacial lakes and sedimentary basins in Antarctica's continental interior. While the existing inventory of cores has yielded important insights into the biotic and climatic evolution of Antarctica, strata have numerous and often lengthy time breaks, providing a framework of snapshots through time. Further cores, and more work on existing cores, are needed to reconcile Antarctic records with the more continuous farfield Ìrecords documenting the evolution of global ice volume and deep-sea temperature. To achieve this, we argue for an integrated portfolio of drilling and coring missions that encompasses existing methodologies using ship-and sea-ice-/ice-shelfbased drilling platforms as well as recently developed seafloor-based drilling and subglacial access systems. We conclude by reviewing key technological issues that will need to be overcome. Copyright 2015 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved.AcknowledgementsThe authors thank members of the SCAR Past Antarctic Ice Sheet and ANTscape programmes, as well as proponents of the ANDRILL Coulman High and IODP-751 proposals for discussions and insights involving the concepts reviewed in this paper. Laura DeSantis is thanked for providing insights regarding the stratigraphy in figure 4. Financial support for this study was provided by the Rutherford Discovery Fellowship (RDF-13-VUW-003) and the Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment (MBIE) contract C05X1001.
TypeArticleCitationMcKay, R., Barrett, P., Levy, R., Naish, T., Golledge, N. and Pyne, A. (2016). Antarctic Cenozoic climate history from sedimentary records: ANDRILL and beyond. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 374(2059) IdentifierMcKay2016aRelevancerank3
