Ice cores and the paleoclimate record
Núcleos de hielo y registro del paleoclima
- Date
- 1966 / 1987 / 2004 · confidence high
- Place
- Vostok Station, Antarctica
- Credited to
- Willi Dansgaard, Claude Lorius, Jean Jouzel (Vostok, 1987); EPICA Dome C (800,000 years, 2004)
- People
- 👤 Claude Lorius1932–2023👤 Jean Jouzel1947–👤 Willi Dansgaard1922–2011
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
What was discovered
Air bubbles trapped in polar ice preserve the ancient atmosphere. The Vostok core showed that CO2 and temperature had varied together over 400,000 years and that present-day CO2 is unprecedented; EPICA extended the record to 800,000 years.
Coordinates of Vostok. Current projects (Beyond EPICA) are seeking ice 1.5 million years old.
What it led to
- Proof of the CO2-temperature link across glacial cycles
- Discovery of abrupt climate changes (Dansgaard-Oeschger)
- Confirmation of the Milankovitch cycles
Built on
- Ice ages and continental glaciation1837-1840
- Ice ages (Agassiz)
- Isotope mass spectrometry
Made possible
- Anthropogenic climate change1938 / 1979 / 1988
- Deep ice drilling
- Oxygen isotopes as a thermometer