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Synchronizing the Greenland ice core and radiocarbon timescales over the Holocene-Bayesian wiggle-matching of cosmogenic radionuclide records

Adolphi, Florian LU and Muscheler, Raimund LU orcid (2016) In Climate of the Past 12(1). p.15-30
Abstract

Investigations of past climate dynamics rely on accurate and precise chronologies of the employed climate reconstructions. The radiocarbon dating calibration curve (IntCal13) and the Greenland ice core chronology (GICC05) represent two of the most widely used chronological frameworks in paleoclimatology of the past 1/4 g50g000 years. However, comparisons of climate records anchored on these chronologies are hampered by the precision and accuracy of both timescales. Here we use common variations in the production rates of 14C and 10Be recorded in tree-rings and ice cores, respectively, to assess the differences between both timescales during the Holocene. Compared to earlier work, we employ a novel statistical approach which leads to... (More)

Investigations of past climate dynamics rely on accurate and precise chronologies of the employed climate reconstructions. The radiocarbon dating calibration curve (IntCal13) and the Greenland ice core chronology (GICC05) represent two of the most widely used chronological frameworks in paleoclimatology of the past 1/4 g50g000 years. However, comparisons of climate records anchored on these chronologies are hampered by the precision and accuracy of both timescales. Here we use common variations in the production rates of 14C and 10Be recorded in tree-rings and ice cores, respectively, to assess the differences between both timescales during the Holocene. Compared to earlier work, we employ a novel statistical approach which leads to strongly reduced and yet, more robust, uncertainty estimates. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the inferred timescale differences are robust independent of (i) the applied ice core 10Be records, (ii) assumptions of the mode of 10Be deposition, as well as (iii) carbon cycle effects on 14C, and (iv) in agreement with independent estimates of the timescale differences. Our results imply that the GICC05 counting error is likely underestimated during the most recent 2000 years leading to a dating bias that propagates throughout large parts of the Holocene. Nevertheless, our analysis indicates that the GICC05 counting error is generally a robust uncertainty measurement but care has to be taken when treating it as a nearly Gaussian error distribution. The proposed IntCal13-GICC05 transfer function facilitates the comparison of ice core and radiocarbon dated paleoclimate records at high chronological precision.

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author
and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
in
Climate of the Past
volume
12
issue
1
pages
15 - 30
publisher
Copernicus GmbH
external identifiers
  • scopus:84956639001
  • wos:000371624500002
ISSN
1814-9324
DOI
10.5194/cp-12-15-2016
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
9e10ebb8-68eb-40dd-867b-82309f2c56cb
date added to LUP
2016-06-16 10:32:38
date last changed
2024-06-14 09:33:32
@article{9e10ebb8-68eb-40dd-867b-82309f2c56cb,
  abstract     = {{<p>Investigations of past climate dynamics rely on accurate and precise chronologies of the employed climate reconstructions. The radiocarbon dating calibration curve (IntCal13) and the Greenland ice core chronology (GICC05) represent two of the most widely used chronological frameworks in paleoclimatology of the past 1/4 g50g000 years. However, comparisons of climate records anchored on these chronologies are hampered by the precision and accuracy of both timescales. Here we use common variations in the production rates of 14C and 10Be recorded in tree-rings and ice cores, respectively, to assess the differences between both timescales during the Holocene. Compared to earlier work, we employ a novel statistical approach which leads to strongly reduced and yet, more robust, uncertainty estimates. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the inferred timescale differences are robust independent of (i) the applied ice core 10Be records, (ii) assumptions of the mode of 10Be deposition, as well as (iii) carbon cycle effects on 14C, and (iv) in agreement with independent estimates of the timescale differences. Our results imply that the GICC05 counting error is likely underestimated during the most recent 2000 years leading to a dating bias that propagates throughout large parts of the Holocene. Nevertheless, our analysis indicates that the GICC05 counting error is generally a robust uncertainty measurement but care has to be taken when treating it as a nearly Gaussian error distribution. The proposed IntCal13-GICC05 transfer function facilitates the comparison of ice core and radiocarbon dated paleoclimate records at high chronological precision.</p>}},
  author       = {{Adolphi, Florian and Muscheler, Raimund}},
  issn         = {{1814-9324}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{01}},
  number       = {{1}},
  pages        = {{15--30}},
  publisher    = {{Copernicus GmbH}},
  series       = {{Climate of the Past}},
  title        = {{Synchronizing the Greenland ice core and radiocarbon timescales over the Holocene-Bayesian wiggle-matching of cosmogenic radionuclide records}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/cp-12-15-2016}},
  doi          = {{10.5194/cp-12-15-2016}},
  volume       = {{12}},
  year         = {{2016}},
}