Links between MIS 11 millennial to sub-millennial climate variability and long term trends as revealed by new high resolution EPICA Dome C deuterium data - A comparison with the Holocene

Abstract

We expand here the description of the Antarctic temperature variability during the long interglacial period occurring ∼400 thousand years before the present (Marine Isotopic Stage, MIS 11). Our study is based on new detailed deuterium measurements conducted on the EPICA Dome C ice core, Antarctica, with a ∼50 year temporal resolution. Despite an ice diffusion of a length reaching ∼8 cm at MIS 11 depth, the data allow us to highlight a variability at multi-centennial scale for MIS 11, as it has already been observed for the Holocene period (MIS 1). The differences between MIS 1 and MIS 11 are analysed regarding the links between multi-millennial trends and sub-millennial variability. The EPICA Dome C deuterium record shows an increased variability and the onset of millennial to sub-millennial periodicities at the beginning of the final cooling phase of MIS 11. Our findings are robust with respect to sensitivity tests on the somewhat uncertain MIS 11 duration. © 2011 Author(s).