Editor's Summary

23 March 2006

It's a long story...

At over 3 km long, the ice core drilled at Dome C in Antarctica represents a record of 740,000 years, or eight glacial cycles. This will be the longest climate record available for years to come, so information gleaned from it will become a benchmark for Antarctic climate research. An examination of the core shows that sea ice around Antarctica waxed and waned in line with temperature over multimillennial timescales, but less so over shorter periods. During cold periods, larger amounts of dust were produced from a drier Patagonia, landing in the Southern Ocean where they probably affected marine productivity. Oceanic production of sulphur compounds, which might affect cloud nucleation, was remarkably constant throughout the period.

Article: Southern Ocean sea-ice extent, productivity and iron flux over the past eight glacial cycles

E. W. Wolff, H. Fischer, F. Fundel, U. Ruth, B. Twarloh, G. C. Littot, R. Mulvaney, R. Röthlisberger, M. de Angelis, C. F. Boutron, M. Hansson, U. Jonsell, M. A. Hutterli, F. Lambert, P. Kaufmann, B. Stauffer, T. F. Stocker, J. P. Steffensen, M. Bigler, M. L. Siggaard-Andersen, R. Udisti, S. Becagli, E. Castellano, M. Severi, D. Wagenbach, C. Barbante, P. Gabrielli and V. Gaspari

doi:10.1038/nature04614

Abstract | Full Text | PDF (375K) | Supplementary information