Global Pattern of Temperature Variability in Greenland and Antarctica and the Cooling Trend in the Last Millennia

Abstract

A study of glacial−interglacial periods shows that, once ice sheets reach a critical maximal mass, the glaciation period changes to an interglacial one; the latter gives way to the following glaciation period, during which the ice sheet mass becomes minimal. The last interglacial period, the Holocene, has been going on for more than 10 ka; this raises the question of the timing of the end of the Holocene and the beginning of the upcoming glaciation. The retrieval of detailed information on the mechanisms of climate change is connected with the study of ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, oceanic sediments, and continuous terrestrial proxy data. Long-term continuous data on the variability of land ice in Greenland and Antarctica provide valuable information on the climate variability pattern in the time intervals of the transition from glacial conditions to interglacial ones and vice versa. The data on temperature anomalies in Greenland and Antarctica are compared and analyzed here. The paper mainly focuses on the temperature variability pattern for the time interval of the transition from the last glacial maximum to the present moment (i.e., the temperature and trends in its changes are reconstructed).