Two Ice-Core D O Records from Svalbard Illustrating Climate And

The Holocene 15,4 (2005) pp. 501Á/509 Two ice-core d18O records from Svalbard illustrating climate and sea-ice variability over the last 400 years Elisabeth Isaksson,1* Jack Kohler,1 Veijo Pohjola,2 John Moore,3 Makoto Igarashi,4 Lars Karlo¨f,1 To˜nu Martma,5 Harro Meijer,6 Hideaki Motoyama,4 Rein Vaikma¨e5 and Roderik S.W. van de Wal7 (1Norwegian Polar Institute, N-9296 Tromsø, Norway; 2Department of Earth Sciences, Uppsala University, Villava¨gen 16, S-752 36 Uppsala, Sweden; 3Arctic Centre, University of Lapland, Box 122, 96101 Rovaniemi, Finland; 4National Institute of Polar Research (NIPR), Tokyo, Japan; 5Institute of Geology at Tallinn University of Technology, 10143 Tallinn, Estonia; 6Centre for Isotope Research, Nijenborgh 4 9747 AG Groningen, The Netherlands; 7Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research Utrecht, Utrecht University, PO Box 80005, 3508 TA Utrecht, The Netherlands) Received 27 June 2002; revised manuscript accepted 21 June 2004 Abstract: Ice cores from the relatively low-lying ice caps in Svalbard have not been widely exploited in climatic studies owing to uncertainties about the effect of meltwater percolation. However, results from two new Svalbard ice cores, at Lomonosovfonna and Austfonna, have shown that with careful site selection, high-resolution sampling and multiple chemical analyses it is possible to recover ice cores from which part of the annual signals are preserved, despite the considerable meltwater percolation. The new Svalbard ice cores are positioned in different parts of Svalbard and cover the past 800 years. In this paper we focus on the last 400 years. The d18O signals from the cores are qualitatively similar over most of the twentieth century, suggesting that they record the same atmospheric signal. Prior to AD 1920, the Austfonna ice core exhibits more negative d18O values than Lomonosovfonna, although there are intermittent decadal-scale periods throughout the record with similar values. We suggest that the differences reflect the effect of the inversion layer during the winter. The pattern in the d18O records is similar to the Longyearbyen air- temperature record, but on an annual level the correlation is low. The Austfonna record correlates well with the temperature record from the more distant and southwesterly located Jan Mayen. A comparison of the ice-core and sea-ice records from this period suggests that sea-ice extent and Austfonna d18O are related over the past 400 years. This may reflect the position of the storm tracks and their direct influence on the relatively low-altitude Austfonna. Lomonosovfonna may be less sensitive to such changes and primarily record free atmospheric changes instead of variations in sea-ice extent, the latter is probably a result of its higher elevation. Key words: Ice-cores, climatic change, d18O records, meteorology, sea ice, oxygen isotopes, stable isotopes, Svalbard, late Holocene. *Author for correspondence (e-mail: [email protected]) # 2005 Edward Arnold (Publishers) Ltd 10.1191/0959683605hl820rp 502 The Holocene 15 (2005) during the winter months but much less during the summer months (Hisdal, 1998). During the instrumental period, precipitation in Svalbard has increased by about 25%, probably as a result of changes in atmospheric circulation (Førland et al., 1997; Hanssen-Bauer and Førland, 1998). The average precipitation varies around the archipelago and, despite the Atlantic depressions, most precipitation is brought by easterly winds causing an eastÁ/west gradient (Hisdal, 1998). Information regarding climate variations on Svalbard before the instrumental period is largely restricted to different climate proxy-archives with limited time resolution. For example, Holocene climatic variability in Svalbard has been studied using shoreline displacements (raised beaches), lichenometric studies (algae growth curves), moraine forms (glacier front variations) and sediment cores taken from lakes, and from the fjords and surrounding sea shelf areas around the Svalbard archipelago (e.g., Salvigsen et al., 1992; Hjort et al., 1995). Information on the more recent past, including the period commonly referred to as the ‘Little Ice Age’ (LIA) at about AD 1450Á/1850 (Grove, 2001) has therefore largely been lacking. Svalbard glaciers seem to have been at Figure 1 Location map of Svalbard and the drill locations on their maximum extent around the beginning of the 1900s Lomonsovfonna and Austfonna (Hagen et al., 1993), just prior to the general warming of the Arctic. A valuable climatic archive is the sea-ice reconstruc- tions around Svalbard based on records from whaling and Introduction sealing ships compiled by Vinje (1999, 2001). This work has shown that the period before 1920 was characterized by heavy Svalbard is situated in a climatically sensitive area at the sea ice interrupted by periods with more modest sea-ice turning point of the North Atlantic Current, where warm air conditions. masses from the southwest meet the cold Arctic air from the About 60% of the islands in Svalbard are ice-covered and, northeast, i.e., both the atmospheric and oceanic polar fronts naturally, ice-core studies have the potential of being a valuable (Figure 1). The warm Atlantic Water current splits south of palaeoclimatic indicator for this area. Since the 1970s several Svalbard, with one branch continuing north through the Fram ice-cores have been drilled in Svalbard by groups from both Strait and into the Arctic Ocean, and the other branch flowing the former Soviet Union (e.g., Tarussov, 1992) and Japan into the Barents Sea (Loeng, 1991). (e.g., Watanabe et al., 2001), but very few of these have been The large-scale circulation around Svalbard is characterized studied in detail. In many cases the dating is insufficient owing by variations between two extreme weather types. The first is to a combination of melting, coarse sampling and limited depressions arriving from the southwest, which advect mild air analysis of chemical species (Koerner, 1997). As a result, the as they move in a northeasterly direction. This situation can available ice-core records have not been fully utilized for give relatively high average temperatures at any time during the climatic reconstruction. winter, a characteristic feature for Svalbard. The second In this paper we investigate the d18O records, with a focus on weather type is characterized by a low-pressure area over the last 400 years, from two recently drilled Svalbard ice-cores Iceland and a high-pressure area over north Greenland and the on Lomonosovfonna and Austfonna (Figure 1, Table 1). The Arctic Ocean, resulting in cold easterly and northeasterly d18O records are investigated from a proxy-temperature winds over Svalbard (Hisdal, 1998). perspective, focusing on the differences between the records. The geographical position of Svalbard makes heat transport Both ice caps have been drilled previously. A 200-m core was to this area very sensitive to changes in both ocean currents drilled on Lomonosovfonna at 1020 m a.s.l. in 1976, which and air masses. Relatively little is known about the climatic yielded a partially preserved seasonal stratigraphy in oxygen conditions here before the instrumental period began in 1911. isotopes (Gordiyenko et al., 1981), and which was dated to the By combining several records from the vicinity of Long- twelfth century based on calculations of the accumulation yearbyen at Isfjorden (Figure 1), a continuous record has rate during the last decades. In 1987 Austfonna was drilled been created (Nordli et al., 1996). The most characteristic to bedrock (566 m) by a group from the former USSR feature is the abrupt warming that occured after a temperature (Tarussov, 1992). minimum in 1917 and lasted to the late 1930s (Figure 2) Á/ the In our previous work with the new Lomonosovfonna ice early twentieth-century warming (see Bengtsson et al., 2004, core we have been able to show that it correlates with other for discussion and references). After a cooler period that local climatic parameters such as air temperature, sea ice and culminated in the late 1960s there has been a significant sea-surface temperature (SST), on a multiyear basis (O’Dwyer increase in temperature, but Svalbard is still colder than it was et al., 2000; Isaksson et al., 2001) since 1920. In addition, in the 1930s. No significant trend can be found for the entire Pohjola et al. (2002a) have shown that the isotopic composition instrumental period, although there are significant trends on a seems to have undergone relatively little reorganization decadal scale (Hanssen-Bauer and Førland, 1998). The general resulting from percolation of meltwater during the period pattern of the spatial variation of temperature in Svalbard is 1920Á/1997. It is therefore reasonable to expect that the ice-core that the northern and eastern parts are cooler because of the record is even less affected by percolating meltwater prior to influence of cold polar air and drift ice with a temperature 1920 and that the d18O record is a reliable climatic indicator gradient of about 2.58C per degree latitude from south to north given the colder temperatures of the nineteenth century. Elisabeth Isaksson et al.: Svalbard ice-core records and sea-ice variability 503 Figure 2 The d18O records from Lomonosovfonna and Austfonna from the twentieth century are compared with the mean annual temperature records from Longyearbyen (Nordli et al., 1996). The grey line is the unsmoothed data and the black line the running mean for an equivalent of 5 years (from Isaksson et al., 2003) Materials and methods (Isaksson et al., 2001) and to the early eighteenth century using d18O (Pohjola et al., 2002b). The melt index (Koerner, 1997) in The Lomonosovfonna ice core this core was on average 41% (Pohjola et al., 2002a). In April 1997, a 121-m-deep ice core was retrieved from Lomonosovfonna, the highest ice field at Spitsbergen (1250 m The Austfonna ice core a.s.l.) (Figure 1, Table 1). Radar measurements at the core site During the spring of 1999 a 289-m-deep core was drilled on the suggest that the ice core nearly reached the bottom.

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