Published in

American Geophysical Union, Geophysical Research Letters, 20(36), 2009

DOI: 10.1029/2009gl040104

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Ice core evidence for significant 100-year regional warming on the Antarctic Peninsula

Journal article published in 2009 by E. R. Thomas, P. F. Dennis ORCID, T. J. Bracegirdle, C. Franzke ORCID
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Abstract

1] We present a new 150-year, high-resolution, stable isotope record (d 18 O) from the Gomez ice core, drilled on the data sparse south western Antarctic Peninsula, revealing a $2.7°C rise in surface temperatures since the 1950s. The record is highly correlated with satellite-derived temperature reconstructions and instrumental records from Faraday station on the north west coast, thus making it a robust proxy for local and regional temperatures since the 1850s. We conclude that the exceptional 50-year warming, previously only observed in the northern Peninsula, is not just a local phenomena but part of a statistically significant 100-year regional warming trend that began around 1900. A suite of coupled climate models are employed to demonstrate that the 50 and 100 year temperature trends are outside of the expected range of variability from pre-industrial control runs, indicating that the warming is likely the result of external climate forcing.