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Abstract

We review the post-glacial climate variability along the East Antarctic coastline using terrestrial and shallow
marine geological records and compare these reconstructions with data from elsewhere. Nearly all East
Antarctic records show a near-synchronous Early Holocene climate optimum (11.5–9 ka BP), coinciding with
the deglaciation of currently ice-free regions and the optimum recorded in Antarctic ice and marine sediment
cores. Shallow marine and coastal terrestrial climate anomalies appear to be out of phase after the Early
Holocene warm period, and show complex regional patterns, but an overall trend of cooling in the terrestrial
records. A Mid to Late Holocene warm period is present in many East Antarctic lake and shallow coastal
marine records. Although there are some differences in the regional timing of this warm period, it typically
occurs somewhere between 4.7 and 1 ka BP, which overlaps with a similar optimum found in Antarctic
Peninsula terrestrial records. The differences in the timing of these sometimes abrupt warm events in
different records and regions points to a number of mechanisms that we have yet to identify. Nearly all
records show a neoglacial cooling from 2 ka BP onwards. There is no evidence along the East Antarctic
coastline for an equivalent to the Northern Hemisphere Medieval Warm Period and there is only weak
circumstantial evidence in a few places for a cool event crudely equivalent in time to the Northern
Hemisphere's Little Ice Age. There is a need for well-dated, high resolution climate records in coastal East
Antarctica and particularly in Terre Adélie, Dronning Maud Land and Enderby Land to fully understand the
regional climate anomalies, the disparity between marine and terrestrial records, and to determine the
signi!cance of the heterogeneous temperature trends being measured in the Antarctic today.

Item Type:	Article
Authors/Creators:	Verleyen, E and Hodgson, DA and Sabbe, K and Cremer, H and Emslie, SD and Gibson, JAE and Hall, B and Imura, S and Kudoh, S and Marshall, GJ and McMinn, A and Melles, M and Newman, L and Roberts, D and Roberts, SJ and Singh, SM and Sterken, M and Tavernier, I and Verkulich, S and de Vyver, E and van Nieuwenhuyze, W and Wagner, B and Vyverman, W
Keywords:	Antarctica; Holocene; climate change; warm period; paleolimnology; marine geology
Journal or Publication Title:	Earth-Science Reviews
DOI / ID Number:	10.1016/j.earscirev.2010.10.006
Additional Information:	The definitive version is available at http://www.sciencedirect.com
Item Statistics:	View statistics for this item

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