Glaciers as records of climate
• Ice cores: – Detailed records of
temperature, precipitation, volcanic eruptions
– Go back hundred of thousands years
Past climate reconstructions
• Instrumental records– Global air temperature: limited records
• Proxy records of climate– “proxy” = a measure of climate conditions of
the past– clues such as temperature, precipitation– EX: ICE-CORES
Global temperature- instrumental record
Global temperature- reconstructed
Methods of Dating Ice Cores
• Counting of Annual Layers – Temperature Dependent – Marker: ratio of 18O to 16O– find number of years that the ice-core accumulated over– Very time consuming; some errors
• Using volcanic eruptions as Markers – Marker: volcanic ash and chemicals washed out of the
atmosphere by precipitation – use recorded volcanic eruptions to calibrate age of the ice-
core– must know date of the eruption
How do we reconstruct past climate from ice cores?
• Oxygen Isotope analysis:– Examining type of water isotopes contained
in ice– Gives clues about temperature at time of
deposition
Isotopes Defined
Name Electrons Protons Neutrons Abundance
16O 8 8 8 99.76%
18O 8 8 10 0.20%
Isotope = atoms of the same element with a different number of neutrons (different mass)
Example: Oxygen Isotopes
Stable Isotopes
16O (Light Element)
18O (Heavy Element)
Chemical and Biological processes can sort the light elements from the heavy elements
Fractionation
Change in 18O value
Oxygen isotopes
• Three isotopes: 18O,17O and 16O
• Important isotopes: 18O and 16O
• Modern 18O/16O ratio: • 1:500
Isotopic change• Evaporation: lighter 16O evaporates more easily
from a water body resulting atmospheric H2O vapor is poorer in 18O than oceanic water
• Condensation: heavier 18O are precipitated faster than lighter 16O;
• So: coldest snow is lightest (less heavy 18O
isotopes, more lighter 16O isotopes)
Evaporative Fractionation
Water vapor 18O?
Precipitation will be depleted in 18O relative to the standard (ocean water)
Negative 18O
18O/16O ratio: “delta 18O”
• Stable isotope ratios are expressed as parts per thousand (per mil – ‰) relative to a standard
• Ratio expressed as deviation of 18O from the Standard Mean Ocean Water ratio (SMOW)
Delta O18 and temperature
• Temperature affects 18O/16O ratio:
– colder temperatures more negative values for the delta 18O
– warmer temperatures delta 18O values that are less negative (closer to the standard ratio of ocean water)
Delta 18O and temperature
Seasonal variations
• Summer (warmer) and winter (colder) periods in glacial ice can be observed as long as the delta 18O ratio is locked into the ice
Continental effect
Altitudinal effect
• As water molecules travel up on an ice sheet water changes from vapor to liquid18O is precipitated first
• So: ice on the top of the glacier has less 18O than at the base of the mountain
How far back do records go?
• Greenland: the last 100,000 years
• Antarctica: record going back 400,000 years has been reconstructed
Temperature reconstructed from Greenland Ice core
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