CPD Climate of the Past Discussions CPD 1814-9359 Copernicus GmbH Göttingen, Germany 10.5194/cpd-8-215-2012 Little Ice Age climate and oceanic conditions of the Ross Sea, Antarctica from a coastal ice core record Rhodes R. H. 1 2 6 Bertler N. A. N. 1 2 Baker J. A. 3 Steen-Larsen H. C. 4 Sneed S. B. 5 Morgenstern U. 2 Johnsen S. J. 4 Antarctic Research Centre, Victoria University of Wellington, P.O. Box 600, Wellington, 6140, New Zealand GNS Science, National Ice Core Research Laboratory, P.O. Box 30-368, Lower Hutt, 5040, New Zealand School of Geography, Environment and Earth Sciences, Victoria University of Wellington, P.O. Box 600, Wellington, New Zealand Centre for Ice and Climate, Niels Bohr Institute, Juliane Maries Vej 30, 2100 Copenhagen, Denmark Climate Change Institute, University of Maine, Orono, ME 04469, USA Present address: College of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331, USA 10 01 2012 8 1 215 262 This is an open-access article ditributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. This article is available from http://www.clim-past-discuss.net/8/215/2012/cpd-8-215-2012.html The full text article is available as a PDF file from http://www.clim-past-discuss.net/8/215/2012/cpd-8-215-2012.pdf

The Little Ice Age (LIA) is the most recent abrupt climate change event. Understanding its forcings and associated climate system feedbacks is made difficult by a scarcity of Southern Hemisphere paleoclimate records. In this paper we utilise ice core glaciochemical records to reconstruct atmospheric and oceanic conditions in the Ross Sea sector of Antarctic, a region influenced by two contrasting meteorological regimes: katabatic winds and cyclones. Stable isotope (&delta;<i>D</i>) and lithophile element concentration (e.g., Al) records indicate that the region experienced ~1.75 °C cooler temperatures and strong (>57 m s<sup>−1</sup>) prevailing katabatic winds during the LIA. We observe that the 1590–1875 record is characterised by high d-excess values and marine element (e.g., Na) concentrations, which are linked to the intrusion of cyclonic systems. The strongest katabatic wind events of the LIA, marked by Al, Ti and Pb concentration increases of an order of magnitude (>120 ppb Al), also occur during this interval. Furthermore, concentrations of the biogenic sulphur species MS<sup>&minus;</sup> suggest that biological productivity in the Ross Sea Polynya was ~80% higher prior to 1875 than in the subsequent time. We propose that colder temperatures and intensified cyclonic activity in the Ross Sea promoted stronger katabatic winds across the Ross Ice Shelf, resulting in an enlarged polynya with increased sea ice and bottom water production. It is therefore hypothesised that increased bottom water formation during the LIA occurred in response to atmospheric circulation change.

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