ALBERT

Description: Sea ice is a critical component of the climate system: variations in sea-ice cover affect the albedo of polar regions, and also the rate of deepwater formation. Changes in the sea-ice cover of the North Atlantic Ocean are thought to have been related to abrupt climate changes throughout the last glacial termination, but reconstructions of sea-ice conditions are rare. Here we use the sedimentary abundance of the IP25 and brassicasterol biomarkers, produced by sea-ice-associated diatoms and open-water phytoplankton, respectively, to generate a record of sea-ice conditions in the northernmost Atlantic Ocean for the past 30,000 years. Our reconstruction shows that a stationary margin between sea-ice cover and the open ocean existed during the Last Glacial, although perennial sea-ice cover prevailed for most of the Last Glacial Maximum. An early warming about 14,000 years ago was associated with ice-free conditions; however, seasonal sea ice was present throughout the Holocene. We find temporal links between our record of sea ice and reconstructions of the amount of relatively warm Atlantic water advected into the Nordic Seas. We therefore conclude that changes in sea-ice conditions are linked to regional and global climate anomalies and oceanographic circulation in the North Atlantic.

Description: Ground-based accumulation measurements are scarce on the high East Antarctic plateau, but highly necessary for model validation and the interpretation of satellite data for the determination of Antarctic mass balance. Here, we present accumulation results obtained from four shallow firn cores drilled in the Antarctic summer season 2007/2008. The cores were drilled along the first leg of the Norwegian-US IPY traverse through East Antarctica, visiting sites like Plateau Station and Pole of Relative Inaccessibility that have been covered by the South Pole Queen Maud Land Traverses (SPQMLT) in the 1960s. Accumulation has been determined from volcanic chronology established from the conductivity records measured by dielectric profiling (DEP). The Tambora 1815/unknown 1809 double peak is clearly visible in the conductivity data and serves as a reliable time marker. Accumulation rates averaged over the period 1815-2007 are in the range of 16 to 32 kg/m**2/a, somewhat lower than expected from the SPQMLT data. The spatial pattern is mainly influenced by elevation and continentality. Three of the firn cores show a decrease of more than 20% in accumulation for the time period 1815-2007 in relation to accumulation rates during the period 1641-1815. The spatial representativity of the firn cores is assessed by ground-penetrating radar, showing a rather smoothly layered pattern around the drill sites. Validation of the DEP results is utilized by comparison with chemistry data, proving the validity of the DEP method for dating firn cores. The results help understanding the status of the East Antarctic ice sheet and will be important for e.g. future model-derived estimates of the mass balance of Antarctica.