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Ancient Ice Air Content of the Vostok Ice Core

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Biogeochemistry of Global Change

Abstract

A deep ice core drilled at Vostok Station, Antarctica, provides a record of atmospheric climate and CO2 that is representative of global changes over the last glacial-interglacial-penultimate glacial cycle (about 200 kyr). The final Vostok core in 1989 approached 2540 m. Here we present and discuss the initial CO2 record obtained to 2340 m. A combination of static head-space extraction and stripping the remaining dissolved gas was followed by gas-chromatographic analysis. The obtained data show the “warm” maxima indicated by CO2 ice core content at 2280 m. The link between the process of air capture and release during the snowflake formation, snow accumulation, metamorphism, and sintering was considered. It was shown that the carbon ionic species, which were trapped during the snowflake formation, might be the cause for the discrepancy between the CO2 measurements by “wet” and “dry” techniques. The possible mechanism at the Younger Dryas signal is also considered.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Far Eastern Branch, Academy of Sciences, Russia, Pacific Oceanological Institute, Vladivostok, 690032, Russia

    I. P. Semiletov

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  1. ISEB, Menlo Park, California, USA

    Ronald S. Oremland (Chairman) (Chairman)

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Semiletov, I.P. (1993). Ancient Ice Air Content of the Vostok Ice Core. In: Oremland, R.S. (eds) Biogeochemistry of Global Change. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-2812-8_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-2812-8_3

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4613-6215-9

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