Recent climate and ice-sheet changes in west antarctica compared with the past 2,000 years

ABSTRACT Changes in atmospheric circulation over the past five decades have enhanced the wind-driven inflow of warm ocean water onto the Antarctic continental shelf, where it melts ice

shelves from below1,2,3. Atmospheric circulation changes have also caused rapid warming4 over the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, and contributed to declining sea-ice cover in the adjacent

Amundsen–Bellingshausen seas5. It is unknown whether these changes are part of a longer-term trend. Here, we use water-isotope (δ18O) data from an array of ice-core records to place recent

West Antarctic climate changes in the context of the past two millennia. We find that the δ18O of West Antarctic precipitation has increased significantly in the past 50 years, in parallel

with the trend in temperature, and was probably more elevated during the 1990s than at any other time during the past 200 years. However, δ18O anomalies comparable to those of recent decades

occur about 1% of the time over the past 2,000 years. General circulation model simulations suggest that recent trends in δ18O and climate in West Antarctica cannot be distinguished from

decadal variability that originates in the tropics. We conclude that the uncertain trajectory of tropical climate variability represents a significant source of uncertainty in projections of

West Antarctic climate and ice-sheet change. Access through your institution Buy or subscribe This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution ACCESS OPTIONS Access

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subscriptions * Read our FAQs * Contact customer support SIMILAR CONTENT BEING VIEWED BY OTHERS SEASONAL TEMPERATURES IN WEST ANTARCTICA DURING THE HOLOCENE Article Open access 11 January

2023 DECADAL WARMING EVENTS EXTENDED INTO CENTRAL NORTH AMERICA DURING THE LAST GLACIAL PERIOD Article 02 March 2023 NEAR-SYNCHRONOUS NORTHERN HEMISPHERE AND PATAGONIAN ICE SHEET VARIATION

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the National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs (grant numbers 0537930, 0837988, 0963924 and 1043092 to E.J.S.; 05379853 and 1043167 to J.W.C.W.; 0944730 to S.B.R.; 0230396,

0440817, 0944348 and 0944266 to K.C.T.; 0096305, 9316564, 0096299, 0424589, 0439589, 063740, 063650 and 0837883 to P.A.M.; 0838871 to D.P.S.). NCAR is sponsored by the National Science

Foundation. We thank A. Orsi, J. Bautista and J. Flaherty. AUTHOR INFORMATION Author notes * Peter D. Neff Present address: Present address: Antarctic Research Centre, Victoria University of

Wellington, Wellington 6140, New Zealand, * Ailie J. E. Gallant Present address: Present address: School of Geography and Environmental Science, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria 3800,

Australia, AUTHORS AND AFFILIATIONS * Quaternary Research Center and Department of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA Eric J. Steig, Qinghua

Ding, Marcel Küttel, Peter D. Neff, Ailie J. E. Gallant, Spruce W. Schoenemann, Bradley R. Markle, Tyler J. Fudge, Andrew J. Schauer & Rebecca P. Teel * Institute of Arctic and Alpine

Research, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80303, USA James W. C. White & Bruce H. Vaughn * Department of Geological Sciences, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah 84602, USA

Summer B. Rupper, Landon Burgener & Jessica Williams * NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20770, Code 615, USA Thomas A. Neumann * Climate Change Institute and School

of Earth and Climate Sciences, University of Maine, Orono, Maine 04469, USA Paul A. Mayewski, Daniel A. Dixon & Elena Korotkikh * Desert Research Institute, Reno, Nevada 89512, USA

Kendrick C. Taylor * Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement, Centre d’Etudes de Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette 91191, France Georg Hoffmann * Institute for Marine and Atmospheric

Research, Utrecht University, Utrecht 3508 TC, Netherlands Georg Hoffmann * National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado 80305, USA David P. Schneider Authors * Eric J. Steig

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Scholar CONTRIBUTIONS E.J.S., J.W.C.W., S.B.R., P.D.N., B.R.M., B.H.V., D.P.S., S.W.S., T.A.N., P.A.M., K.C.T., T.J.F., D.A.D. and E.K. conducted fieldwork and sample collection. P.D.N.,

A.J.S., R.P.T., B.H.V., E.K., E.J.S., D.P.S., J.W.C.W., S.B.R., L.B. and J.W. obtained the ice-core water-isotope data. G.H. provided code and assistance with the modelling. E.J.S. and Q.D.

compiled the data, conducted the model experiments and calculations and wrote the paper. All authors contributed to the final manuscript text. CORRESPONDING AUTHORS Correspondence to Eric J.

Steig, Peter D. Neff or Ailie J. E. Gallant. ETHICS DECLARATIONS COMPETING INTERESTS The authors declare no competing financial interests. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION SUPPLEMENTARY

INFORMATION Supplementary Information (PDF 2761 kb) RIGHTS AND PERMISSIONS Reprints and permissions ABOUT THIS ARTICLE CITE THIS ARTICLE Steig, E., Ding, Q., White, J. _et al._ Recent

climate and ice-sheet changes in West Antarctica compared with the past 2,000 years. _Nature Geosci_ 6, 372–375 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo1778 Download citation * Received: 11 July

2012 * Accepted: 26 February 2013 * Published: 14 April 2013 * Issue Date: May 2013 * DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo1778 SHARE THIS ARTICLE Anyone you share the following link with will

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