Nature 366, 552 - 554 (09 December 1993); doi:10.1038/366552a0

Comparison of oxygen isotope records from the GISP2 and GRIP Greenland ice cores

P. M. Grootes^{& ast;}, M. Stuiver^{& ast;}, J. W. C. White^{& dagger;}, S. Johnsen^{& Dagger;& sect;} & J. Jouzel^{& par;}

^{& ast;}Department of Geological Sciences and Quaternary Research Center, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA
^{& dagger;}INSTAAR, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80304, USA
^{& Dagger;}The Niels Bohr Institute, Department of Geophysics, University of Copenhagen, Haraldsgade 6, DK-2200 Copenhagen, Denmark
^{& sect;}Science Institute, Department of Geophysics, University of Iceland, Dunhaga 3, IS-107 Reykjavik, Iceland
^{& par;}Laboratoire de Modelisation du Climat et de I'Environnement, CEA/DSM CE Saclay 91191, Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex, France

RECENT results^1,2 from the Greenland Ice-core Project (GRIP) Summit ice core suggest that the climate in Greenland has been remarkably stable during the Holocene, but was extremely unstable for the time period represented by the rest of the core, spanning the last two glaciations and the intervening Eemian inter-glacial. Here we present the complete oxygen isotope record for the Greenland Ice Sheet Project 2 (GISP2) core, drilled 28 km west of the GRIP core. We observe large, rapid climate fluctuations throughout the last glacial period, which closely match those reported for the GRIP core. However, in the bottom 10% of the cores, spanning the Eemian interglacial and the previous glacia-tion, there are significant differences between the two records. It is possible that ice flow may have altered the chronological sequences of the stratigraphy for the bottom part of one or both of the cores. Considerable further work will be necessary to evaluate the likelihood of this, and the extent to which it will still be possible to extract meaningful climate information from the lowest sections of the cores.

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