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We here describe, document, and make available a wide range of data sets used for annual-layer identification in ice cores from DYE-3, GRIP, NGRIP, NEEM, and EGRIP. The data stem from detailed measurements performed both on the main deep cores and shallow cores over more than 40 years using many different setups developed by research groups in several countries and comprise both discrete measurements from cut ice samples and continuous-flow analysis data. The data series were used for counting annual layers 60 000 years back in time during the construction of the Greenland Ice-Core Chronology 2005 (GICC05) and/or the revised GICC21, which currently only reaches 3800 years back. Now that the underlying data are made available (listed in Table 1) we also release the individual annual-layer positions of the GICC05 timescale which are based on these data sets. We hope that the release of the data sets will stimulate further studies of the past climate taking advantage of these highly resolved data series covering a large part of the interior of the Greenland ice sheet.

In this study, we test if cost-efficient X-ray fluorescence (XRF) analyses can be used to fingerprint Palaeogene clay and marl deposits in Denmark. A total of 67 samples from key sites in Denmark have been analysed. Our preliminary results indicate that it is possible locally within 10–30 km to distinguish between most of the Palaeogene units, but on a regional scale across Denmark, the units are not unique, and this probably reflects variations in clay mineralogy, grain size and calcareous content. Accordingly, we suggest that a comprehensive reference database is now needed if the full potential of the method is to be utilised, and this will ultimately result in more reliable geological models.

Records of chemical impurities from ice cores enable us to reconstruct the past deposition of aerosols onto polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Through this they allow us to gain insight into changes of the source, transport and deposition processes that ultimately determine the deposition flux at the coring location. However, the low concentrations of the aerosol species in the ice and the resulting high risk of contamination pose a formidable analytical challenge, especially if long, continuous and highly resolved records are needed. Continuous flow analysis, CFA, the continuous melting, decontamination and analysis of ice-core samples has mostly overcome this issue and has quickly become the de facto standard to obtain high-resolution aerosol records from ice cores after its inception at the University of Bern in the mid-1990s. Here, we present continuous records of calcium (Ca2+), sodium (Na+), ammonium (NH+4), nitrate (NO-3) and electrolytic conductivity at 1 mm depth resolution from the NGRIP (North Greenland Ice Core Project) and NEEM (North Greenland Eemian Ice Drilling) ice cores produced by the Bern Continuous Flow Analysis group in the years 2000 to 2011 (Erhardt et al., 2021). Both of the records were previously used in a number of studies but were never published in full 1 mm resolution. Alongside the 1 mm datasets we provide decadal averages, a detailed description of the methods, relevant references, an assessment of the quality of the data and its usable resolution. Along the way we will also give some historical context on the development of the Bern CFA system.

In the Northern Hemisphere, an insolation driven Early to Middle Holocene Thermal Maximum was followed by a Neoglacial cooling that culminated during the Little Ice Age (LIA). Here, we review the glacier response to this Neoglacial cooling in Greenland. Changes in the ice margins of outlet glaciers from the Greenland Ice Sheet as well as local glaciers and ice caps are synthesized Greenland-wide. In addition, we compare temperature reconstructions from ice cores, elevation changes of the ice sheet across Greenland and oceanographic reconstructions from marine sediment cores over the past 5,000 years. The data are derived from a comprehensive review of the literature supplemented with unpublished reports. Our review provides a synthesis of the sensitivity of the Greenland ice margins and their variability, which is critical to understanding how Neoglacial glacier activity was interrupted by the current anthropogenic warming. We have reconstructed three distinct periods of glacier expansion from our compilation: two older Neoglacial advances at 2,500 – 1,700 yrs. BP (Before Present = 1950 CE, Common Era) and 1,250 – 950 yrs. BP; followed by a general advance during the younger Neoglacial between 700-50 yrs. BP, which represents the LIA. There is still insufficient data to outline the detailed spatio-temporal relationships between these periods of glacier expansion. Many glaciers advanced early in the Neoglacial and persisted in close proximity to their present-day position until the end of the LIA. Thus, the LIA response to Northern Hemisphere cooling must be seen within the wider context of the entire Neoglacial period of the past 5,000 years. Ice expansion appears to be closely linked to changes in ice sheet elevation, accumulation, and temperature as well as surface-water cooling in the surrounding oceans. At least for the two youngest Neoglacial advances, volcanic forcing triggering a sea-ice /ocean feedback, could explain their initiation. There are probably seve

Understanding the long-term difference in the response times of ice sheets, peripheral ice caps and glaciers may provide information about their respective sensitivities to climate change. However, there are only a few places where the history of local glaciers, ice caps (GICs) and the Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) have been recorded in the same area. In this study, we use proglacial threshold lake records from four sites around Sermilik Fjord, in southeast Greenland to determine the Holocene ice marginal variations. Combined with other published records from the area, we find that the GrIS margin receded to within its present extent in the Early Holocene ~9.6 cal ka BP, probably reaching its minimum extent by ~7.3 to 6.3 cal ka BP before readvancing to its maximum Late Holocene position between ~2.6 and 0.3 cal ka BP. The GICs began to retreat ~9.5 cal ka BP and completely melted away for an extended period between ~8 and 4 ka during the Middle Holocene. Regrowth of the GICs began during the early- and late Neoglacial and they reached their maximum extent between ~1.2 and 0.7 cal ka BP. In general, we find a coherent pattern of ice marginal variations between the GrIS and GICs, which coincides with the major Holocene climate changes. However, our results also demonstrate that there are differences in the synchronicity between individual records, which largely are dictated by the local topography that determines when ice marginal changes were recorded in proglacial lakes. Accordingly, this study illustrates both the advantages and limitations of the method and highlight the need for multiple proglacial lake records to constrain past glacier variations in a region.

In recent years, several large outlet glaciers in Greenland lost their floating ice tongue, yet little is known regarding their stability over a longer timescale. Here we compile historical documents to demonstrate a major ice tongue collapse of Kangerlussuaq Glacier between 1932 and 1933. This event resulted in a 9-km retreat, exceeding any of the glacier's recent major retreat events. Sediment cores from the fjord are used to reconstruct sea surface temperatures and to investigate a potential sedimentological trace of the collapse. During the 1920s, local and regional sea surface temperatures and air temperatures increased rapidly, suggesting a climatic trigger for the collapse. Fjord bathymetry played an important role too, as the (partially) pinned ice tongue retreated off a submarine moraine during the event. This historical analogue of a glacier tongue collapse emphasizes the fragility of remaining ice tongues in North Greenland within a warming climate.

Sediment cores from Kløverbladvatna, a threshold lake in Wahlenbergfjorden, Nordaustlandet, Svalbard were used to reconstruct Holocene glacier fluctuations. Meltwater from Etonbreen spills over a threshold to the lake, only when the glacier is significantly larger than at present. Lithological logging, loss-on-ignition, ITRAX scanning and radiocarbon dating of the cores show that Kløverbladvatna became isolated from Wahlenbergfjorden c. 5.4 cal. kyr BP due to glacioisostatic rebound. During the Late Holocene, laminated clayey gyttja from lacustrine organic production and surface runoff from the catchment accumulated in the lake. The lacustrine sedimentary record suggests that meltwater only spilled over the threshold at the peak of the surge of Etonbreen in AD 1938. Hence, we suggest that this was the largest extent of Etonbreen in the (mid-late) Holocene. In Palanderbukta, a tributary fjord to Wahlenbergfjorden, raised beaches were surveyed and organic material collected to determine the age of the beaches and reconstruct postglacial relative sea level change. The age of the postglacial raised beaches ranges from 10.7 cal. kyr BP at 50 m a.s.l. to 3.13 cal. kyr BP at 2 m a.s.l. The reconstructed postglacial relative sea level curve adds valuable spatial and chronological data to the relative sea level record of Nordaustlandet.

The response of the Greenland Ice Sheet (GIS) to changes in temperature during the twentieth century remains contentious, largely owing to difficulties in estimating the spatial and temporal distribution of ice mass changes before 1992, when Greenland-wide observations first became available. The only previous estimates of change during the twentieth century are based on empirical modelling and energy balance modelling. Consequently, no observation-based estimates of the contribution from the GIS to the global-mean sea level budget before 1990 are included in the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Here we calculate spatial ice mass loss around the entire GIS from 1900 to the present using aerial imagery from the 1980s. This allows accurate high-resolution mapping of geomorphic features related to the maximum extent of the GIS during the Little Ice Age at the end of the nineteenth century. We estimate the total ice mass loss and its spatial distribution for three periods: 1900-1983 (75.1 ± 29.4 gigatonnes per year), 1983-2003 (73.8 ± 40.5 gigatonnes per year), and 2003-2010 (186.4 ± 18.9 gigatonnes per year). Furthermore, using two surface mass balance models we partition the mass balance into a term for surface mass balance (that is, total precipitation minus total sublimation minus runoff) and a dynamic term. We find that many areas currently undergoing change are identical to those that experienced considerable thinning throughout the twentieth century. We also reveal that the surface mass balance term shows a considerable decrease since 2003, whereas the dynamic term is constant over the past 110 years. Overall, our observation-based findings show that during the twentieth century the GIS contributed at least 25.0 ± 9.4 millimetres of global-mean sea level rise. Our result will help to close the twentieth-century sea level budget, which remains crucial for evaluating the reliability of models used to predict global sea le

The last two abrupt warmings at the onset of our present warm interglacial period, interrupted by the Younger Dryas cooling event, were investigated at high temporal resolution from the North Greenland Ice Core Project ice core. The deuterium excess, a proxy of Greenland precipitation moisture source, switched mode within 1 to 3 years over these transitions and initiated a more gradual change (over 50 years) of the Greenland air temperature, as recorded by stable water isotopes. The onsets of both abrupt Greenland warmings were slightly preceded by decreasing Greenland dust deposition, reflecting the wetting of Asian deserts. A northern shift of the Intertropical Convergence Zone could be the trigger of these abrupt shifts of Northern Hemisphere atmospheric circulation, resulting in changes of 2 to 4 kelvin in Greenland moisture source temperature from one year to the next.

Corresponding millennial-scale climate changes have been reported from the North Atlantic region and from east Asia for the last glacial period on independent timescales only. To assess their degree of synchrony we suggest interpreting Greenland ice core dust parameters as proxies for the east Asian monsoon systems. This allows comparing North Atlantic and east Asian climate on the same timescale in high resolution ice core data without relative dating uncertainties. We find that during Dansgaard-Oeschger events North Atlantic region temperature and east Asian storminess were tightly coupled and changed synchronously within 5–10 years with no systematic lead or lag, thus providing instantaneous climatic feedback. The tight link between North Atlantic and east Asian glacial climate could have amplified changes in the northern polar cell to larger scales. We further find evidence for an early onset of a Younger Dryas-like event in continental Asia, which gives evidence for heterogeneous climate change within east Asia during the last deglaciation.

The Greenland Ice Core Chronology 2005, GICC05, is extended back to 42 ka b2k (before 2000 AD), i.e. to the end of Greenland Stadial 11. The chronology is based on independent multi-parameter counting of annual layers using comprehensive high-resolution measurements available from the North Greenland Ice Core Project, NGRIP. These are measurements of visual stratigraphy, conductivity of the solid ice, electrolytical melt water conductivity and the concentration of Na+, Ca2+, SO42−, NO3−, NH4+. An uncertainty estimate of the time scale is obtained from identification of ‘uncertain’ annual layers, which are counted as 0.5±0.5 years. The sum of the uncertain annual layers, the so-called maximum counting error of the presented chronology ranges from 4% in the warm interstadial periods to 7% in the cold stadials. The annual accumulation rates of the stadials and interstadials are on average one-third and half of the present day values, respectively, and the onset of the Greenland Interstadials 2, 3, and 8, based on 20 year averaged δ18O values, are determined as 23,340, 27,780, and 38,220 yr b2k in GICC05.

Udgivelsesdato: 27 June

A compilation of nitrate (NO(3)(-)) data from Greenland has shown that recent NO(3)(-) concentrations reveal a temperature dependence similar to that seen in Antarctica. Except for sites with very low accumulation rates, lower temperatures tend to lead to higher NO(3)(-) concentrations preserved in the ice. Accumulation rate, which is closely linked to temperature, might influence the concentrations preserved in snow as well, but its effect cannot be separated from the temperature imprint. Processes involved in NO(3)(-) deposition are discussed and shown to be temperature- and/or accumulation-rate-dependent. Apart from scavenging of nitric acid (HNO(3)) during formation of precipitation, uptake of HNO(3) onto the ice crystal's surface during and after precipitation seems to contribute further to the NO(3)(-) concentrations found in surface snow. Post-depositional loss of NO(3)(-) from the top snow layers is caused by release of HNO(3) and by photolysis of NO(3)(-). It is suggested that photolysis accounts for considerable losses at sites with very low accumulation rates. Depending on the site characteristic, and given that the temperature and accumulation-rate dependence is quantified, it should be possible to infer changes in atmospheric HNO(3) concentrations.