• DOI:10.1038/20859
• Corpus ID: 204993577

Climate and atmospheric history of the past 420,000 years from the Vostok ice core, Antarctica

@article{Petit1999ClimateAA,
  title={Climate and atmospheric history of the past 420,000 years from the Vostok ice core, Antarctica},
  author={Jean Robert Petit and Jean Jouzel and Dominique Raynaud and Nartsiss I. Barkov and J-M. Barnola and Isabelle Basile and Michael Bender and J{\'e}r{\^o}me Chappellaz and M. E. Davis and Gilles Delaygue and Marc Delmotte and V. M. Kotlyakov and Michel Legrand and Vladimir Ya. Lipenkov and C. Lorius and L. P{\'e}pin and Catherine Ritz and Eric S. Saltzman and Michel Sti{\'e}venard},
  journal={Nature},
  year={1999},
  volume={399},
  pages={429-436}
}

• J. Petit, J. Jouzel, +16 authors M. Stiévenard
• Published 3 June 1999
• Environmental Science, Geography
• Nature

The recent completion of drilling at Vostok station in East Antarctica has allowed the extension of the ice record of atmospheric composition and climate to the past four glacial–interglacial cycles. The succession of changes through each climate cycle and termination was similar, and atmospheric and climate properties oscillated between stable bounds. Interglacial periods differed in temporal evolution and duration. Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane correlate well with Antarctic air-temperature throughout the record. Present-day atmospheric burdens of these two important greenhouse gases seem to have been unprecedented during the past 420,000 years.