Papers on CO2 records from ice cores

This is a list of papers on the past CO₂ records measured from the ice cores. Specifically this list contains papers that present new or improved carbon dioxide records from ice cores. The list is based to the Ice Core Data Sets at NOAA. The subject for this list was suggested by Magnus W here. The list is not complete, and will most likely be updated in the future in order to make it more thorough and more representative.

UPDATE, March 14, 2011: Siegenthaler & Oeschger (1987) added.
UPDATE, October 13, 2010: Neftel et al. (1982) added.

High-resolution carbon dioxide concentration record 650,000–800,000 years before present – Lüthi et al. (2008) “So far, the Antarctic Vostok and EPICA Dome C ice cores have provided a composite record of atmospheric carbon dioxide levels over the past 650,000 years. Here we present results of the lowest 200 m of the Dome C ice core, extending the record of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration by two complete glacial cycles to 800,000 yr before present.” [Data]

Atmospheric CO₂ and Climate on Millennial Time Scales During the Last Glacial Period – Ahn & Brook (2008) “We compared CO₂ variations on millennial time scales between 20,000 and 90,000 years ago with an Antarctic temperature proxy and records of abrupt climate change in the Northern Hemisphere. CO₂ concentration and Antarctic temperature were positively correlated over millennial-scale climate cycles, implying a strong connection to Southern Ocean processes.” [Full text] [Data]

Northern Hemisphere forcing of climatic cycles in Antarctica over the past 360,000 years – Kawamura et al. (2007) “Here we present a new chronology of Antarctic climate change over the past 360,000 years that is based on the ratio of oxygen to nitrogen molecules in air trapped in the Dome Fuji and Vostok ice cores. … Our results indicate that orbital-scale Antarctic climate change lags Northern Hemisphere insolation by a few millennia, and that the increases in Antarctic temperature and atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration during the last four terminations occurred within the rising phase of Northern Hemisphere summer insolation.” [Supplement] [Data]
Data description: “CO2 record from the Dome Fuji ice core (Antarctica) covering the last 260 kyr with relatively low resolution.”

Stable Carbon Cycle–Climate Relationship During the Late Pleistocene – Siegenthaler et al. (2005) “A record of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂) concentrations measured on the EPICA (European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica) Dome Concordia ice core extends the Vostok CO₂ record back to 650,000 years before the present (yr B.P.). Before 430,000 yr B.P., partial pressure of atmospheric CO₂ lies within the range of 260 and 180 parts per million by volume. This range is almost 30% smaller than that of the last four glacial cycles; however, the apparent sensitivity between deuterium and CO₂ remains stable throughout the six glacial cycles, suggesting that the relationship between CO₂ and Antarctic climate remained rather constant over this interval.” [Full text] [Data]

Supporting evidence from the EPICA Dronning Maud Land ice core for atmospheric CO₂ changes during the past millennium – Siegenthaler et al. (2005) “Here we present a new detailed CO₂ record from the Dronning Maud Land (DML) ice core, drilled in the framework of the European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica (EPICA) and some new measurements on a previously drilled ice core from the South Pole. The DML CO₂ record shows an increase from about 278 to 282 parts per million by volume (ppmv) between ad 1000 and ad 1200 and a fairly continuous decrease to a mean value of about 277 ppmv around ad 1700.” [Full text] [Data]

Evidence for substantial accumulation rate variability in Antarctica during the Holocene, through synchronization of CO₂ in the Taylor Dome, Dome C and DML ice cores – Monnin et al. (2004) “High resolution records of atmospheric CO₂ concentration during the Holocene are obtained from the Dome Concordia and Dronning Maud Land (Antarctica) ice cores. These records confirm that the CO₂ concentration varied between 260 and 280 ppmv in the Holocene as measured in the Taylor Dome ice core. However, there are differences in the CO₂ records most likely caused by mismatches in timescales. Matching the Taylor Dome timescale to the Dome C timescale by synchronization of CO₂ indicates that the accumulation rate at Taylor Dome increased through the Holocene by a factor two and bears little resemblance to the stable isotope record used as a proxy for temperature. This result shows that different locations experienced substantially different accumulation changes, and casts doubt on the often-used assumption that accumulation rate scales with the saturation vapor pressure as a function of temperature, at least for coastal locations.” [Full text] [Data]

High-resolution Holocene N₂O ice core record and its relationship with CH₄ and CO₂ – Flückiger et al. (2002) “Here we fill this gap with a high-resolution N2O record measured along the European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica (EPICA) Dome C Antarctic ice core. On the same ice we obtained high-resolution methane and carbon dioxide records. This provides the unique opportunity to compare variations of the three most important greenhouse gases (after water vapor) without any uncertainty in their relative timing. The CO₂ and CH₄ records are in good agreement with previous measurements on other ice cores.” [Full text] [Data]

Atmospheric CO₂ Concentrations over the Last Glacial Termination – Monnin et al. (2001) “A record of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂) concentration during the transition from the Last Glacial Maximum to the Holocene, obtained from the Dome Concordia, Antarctica, ice core, reveals that an increase of 76 parts per million by volume occurred over a period of 6000 years in four clearly distinguishable intervals. The close correlation between CO₂ concentration and Antarctic temperature indicates that the Southern Ocean played an important role in causing the CO₂ increase. However, the similarity of changes in CO₂ concentration and variations of atmospheric methane concentration suggests that processes in the tropics and in the Northern Hemisphere, where the main sources for methane are located, also had substantial effects on atmospheric CO₂ concentrations.” [Data]

Atmospheric CO₂ concentration from 60 to 20 kyr BP from the Taylor Dome Ice Core, Antarctica – Indermühle et al. (2000) “A high‐resolution record of the atmospheric CO₂ concentration from 60 to 20 thousand years before present (kyr BP) based on measurements on the ice core of Taylor Dome, Antarctica is presented. This record shows four distinct peaks of 20 parts per million by volume (ppmv) on a millennial time scale. Good correlation of the CO₂ record with temperature reconstructions based on stable isotope measurements on the Vostok ice core (Antarctica) is found.” [Full text] [Data]

Climate and atmospheric history of the past 420,000 years from the Vostok ice core, Antarctica – Petit et al. (1999) “Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane correlate well with Antarctic air-temperature throughout the record. Present-day atmospheric burdens of these two important greenhouse gases seem to have been unprecedented during the past 420,000 years.” [Full text] [Data]
Data description: “They include the deuterium content of the ice (δD_ice, a proxy of local temperature change), the dust content (desert aerosols), the concentration of sodium (marine aerosol), and from the entrapped air the greenhouse gases CO₂ and CH₄, and the δ¹⁸O of O₂ (hereafter δ¹⁸O_atm) which reflects changes in global ice volume and in the hydrological cycle.”

Ice Core Records of Atmospheric CO₂ Around the Last Three Glacial Terminations – Fischer et al. (1999) “High-resolution records from Antarctic ice cores show that carbon dioxide concentrations increased by 80 to 100 parts per million by volume 600 ± 400 years after the warming of the last three deglaciations. Despite strongly decreasing temperatures, high carbon dioxide concentrations can be sustained for thousands of years during glaciations; the size of this phase lag is probably connected to the duration of the preceding warm period, which controls the change in land ice coverage and the buildup of the terrestrial biosphere.” [Full text] [Data]

Dual modes of the carbon cycle since the Last Glacial Maximum – Smith et al. (1999) “We have measured the CO₂ concentration and δ¹³CO₂ of air trapped in ice from Taylor Dome, Antarctica, across the last glacial termination in order to develop a time series for the carbonisotope composition of atmospheric CO₂ and to constrain the mechanisms of carbon cycling between the main sources and sinks of atmospheric CO₂. The atmospheric CO₂ concentration data (Fig. 1) form a record comparable to that from Byrd and Vostok.” [Full text] [Data]

Holocene carbon-cycle dynamics based on CO₂ trapped in ice at Taylor Dome, Antarctica – Indermühle et al. (1999) “A high-resolution ice-core record of atmospheric CO₂ concentration over the Holocene epoch shows that the global carbon cycle has not been in steady state during the past 11,000 years. Analysis of the CO₂ concentration and carbon stable-isotope records, using a one-dimensional carbon-cycle model,uggests that changes in terrestrial biomass and sea surface temperature were largely responsible for the observed millennial-scale changes of atmospheric CO₂ concentrations.” [Full text] [Data]

Natural and anthropogenic changes in atmospheric CO₂ over the last 1000 years from air in Antarctic ice and firn – Etheridge et al. (1996) “A record of atmospheric CO2 mixing ratios from 1006 A.D. to 1978 A.D. has been produced by analysing the air enclosed in three ice cores from Law Dome, Antarctica. The enclosed air has unparalleled age resolution and extends into recent decades, because of the high rate of snow accumulation at the ice core sites. The CO2 data overlap with the record from direct atmospheric measurements for up to 20 years.” [Data]

CO₂ measurements from polar ice cores: more data from different sites – Staffelbach et al. (1991) “In this paper, we will discuss possible small deviations of the CO₂ concentration in air bubbles from that of the atmosphere at the time of enclosure. To do this, new results from Crête (Central Greenland) ice cores, covering the period since the beginning of industrialisation are presented, showing a good agreement with the data from Antarctic ice cores. In addition, the record of the atmospheric CO₂ concentration during the transition from the last glaciation to the Holocene and the fast variations in the concentration of atmospheric CO₂ during parts of the last glaciation, as suggested by Greenland ice core data, will be discussed.”

CO₂ record in the Byrd ice core 50,000–5,000 years bp – Neftel et al. (1988) “To achieve this, we have studied a great number of samples from the deep ice core from Byrd station, Westantarctica, drilled in 1968. These measurements allow us to reconstruct the atmospheric CO₂ concentration in the time period 50,000–15,000 yr bp in great detail.” [Full text] [Data]

Vostok ice core provides 160,000-year record of atmospheric CO₂ – Barnola et al. (1987) “Direct evidence of past atmospheric CO₂ changes has been extended to the past 160,000 years from the Vostok ice core. These changes are most notably an inherent phenomenon of change between glacial and interglacial periods. Besides this major 100,000-year cycle, the CO₂ record seems to exhibit a cyclic change with a period of some 21,000 years.” [Data]

Biospheric CO2 emissions during the past 200 years reconstructed by deconvolution of ice core data – Siegenthaler & Oeschger (1987) “Measurements on air trapped in old polar ice have revealed that the pre-industrial atmosphere contained 280 ppm of CO2 and that δ13C of atmospheric CO2 decreased by about 1.1 %, until 1980. These measurements show that considerable amounts of non-fossil CO2 must have already been emitted into the atmosphere in the 19th century. Quantitative estimates of the emission rates were performed by deconvolving the CO2 and δ13C records, using models of the global carbon cycle (box-diffusion and outcrop-diffusion ocean, four-box biosphere). Depending on the structure of the ocean submodel, deconvolution of the CO2 record yields a cumulative non-fossil production of about 90 to 150 Gt C until 1980, of which more than 50% were released prior to 1900. According to the model results, the net non-fossil production rate was roughly constant in the 19th and the first part of the 20th century. In the past 30 years, smaller values are obtained (0-0.9 Gt C yr−1) which are at the lower limit or below current ecological estimates for deforestation and land use (1.6 ± 0.8 Gt C yr−1). The difference might possibly be due to other sinks, e.g., stimulation of plant productivity by the enhanced CO2 concentration. Calculated 13C and 14C time histories agree well with the observed changes. While the change of the atmospheric CO2 concentration reflects more the cumulative carbon release, the isotope concentrations are more sensitive to short-term changes of the emission rate. The reason is that the oceanic uptake capacity is smaller for excess CO2 by the buffer factor of ˜ 10 than for an isotopic perturbation.” U. Siegenthaler, H. Oeschger, Tellus B, Volume 39B, Issue 1-2, pages 140–154, February-April 1987, DOI: 10.1111/j.1600-0889.1987.tb00278.x.

Evidence from polar ice cores for the increase in atmospheric CO₂ in the past two centuries – Neftel et al. (1985) “An ice core from Siple Station (West Antartica) that allows determination of the enclosed gas concentration with very good time resolution has recently become available. We report here measurements of this core which now allow us to trace the development of the atmospheric CO₂ from a period overlapping the Mauna Loa record back over the past two centuries.”

Ice core sample measurements give atmospheric CO₂ content during the past 40,000 yr – Neftel et al. (1982) “Recent measurements on ice samples from Camp Century (Greenland, 77°10’N, 61°08’W), Byrd Station (Antarctica, 80°01’S, 110°31’W) and Dome C (74°40’S, 125°10’E) suggest that during the late part of the last glaciation the atmospheric CO₂ concentration was significantly lower than during the Holocene. Further investigation of this natural increase of the atmospheric CO₂ concentration in the past should aid our understanding of the climatic implications of the man-made CO₂ increase since the beginning of industrialization3. Here we report new and precise measurements of the CO₂ concentration of the air occluded in bubbles of ice samples from Camp Century and Byrd Station, using a new dry extraction technique. The extracted gases were analysed with an IR-laser spectrometer (IRLS). Samples from 22 different depths were analysed from each core. The samples are distributed over a depth interval corresponding approximately to the past 40,000 yr. In addition results for ice samples from selected depth horizons from a colder region (North Central, Greenland 74°37’N, 39°36’W) and from a warmer region (Dye-3, Greenland 65°11’N, 43°50’W) are given. Based on these results we estimate the trend of the atmospheric CO₂ concentration during the past 40,000 yr.” [Full text]