EAPS
PAOC Colloquium: Michael Bender (Princeton)
| Date |
Time |
Location |
| March 19th, 2018 |
12:00pm-1:00pm |
Ida Green Lounge (9th floor), Building 54, Cambridge, MA, US |
Title:
Patchy ice core records of climate and greenhouse gases during 40,000 year climate cycles of the Early Pleistocene
Abstract:
A multi-institutional collaboration has retrieved samples of Antarctic ice dating beyond 2 Ma, and analyzed these samples for greenhouse gas concentrations and other climate properties. Interpreting the data is complicated because the samples are stratigraphically disturbed. Nonetheless, the results suggest that interglacial Antarctic temperatures, as well as atmospheric CO2 and CH4 concentrations, are within the ranges observed for the past 800,000 years. None of our old ice samples have temperatures or greenhouse gas concentrations as low as glacial values of the past 800,000 years. The data suggest some simple speculations about the dynamics of Pleistocene climates.