Dust can affect the radiative balance of the atmosphere by absorbing or reflecting incoming solar radiation and it can be a source of micronutrients, such as iron, to the ocean. It has been suggested that production, transport, and deposition of dust is influenced by climatic changes on glacial-interglacial timescales. Here we present a high-resolution aeolian dust record from the EPICA Dome C ice core in East Antarctica, which provides an undisturbed climate sequence over the last eight climatic cycles. We find that there is a significant correlation between dust flux and temperature records during glacial periods that is absent during interglacial periods. Our data suggests that dust flux is increasingly correlated with Antarctic temperature as climate becomes colder. We interpret this as progressive coupling of Antarctic and lower latitudes climate. Limited changes in glacial-interglacial atmospheric transport time Mahowald et al. (1999, doi:10.1029/1999JD900084), Jouzel et al. (2007, doi:10.1126/science.1141038), and Werner et al. (2002, doi:10.1029/2002JD002365) suggest that the sources and lifetime of dust are the major factors controlling the high glacial dust input. We propose that the observed ~25-fold increase in glacial dust flux over all eight glacial periods can be attributed to a strengthening of South American dust sources, together with a longer atmospheric dust particle life-time in the upper troposphere resulting from a reduced hydrological cycle during the ice ages.

Here, we present new ice thickness information from the Dome Fuji region, East Antarctica, based on airborne radar surveys conducted during the 2014/15 and 2016/17 southern summers. The data are merged with older airborne surveys conducted by the Alfred Wegener Institute, Germany (in 2003) and the Japanese National Polar Institute (1990s and 2000s). Compared to previous maps of the region, the new dataset shows a more complex landscape with networks of valleys and mountain plateaus. We provide two datasets; one in 1km resolution for the whole study region and a 500m resolution for the area in the immediate vicinity of Dome Fuji. The projection is polar stereographic, centered on 0E, 90S with true scale at 70S.

This dataset was created via processing of raw position data acquired by the GPS sensor for scientific equipment on Polar 6/Polar 5 to receive a validated master track which is used as reference of further expedition data.

This data set contains the ice thickness data as recorded with the AWI airborne radar system (Nixdorf et al., 1999), operated with a 150 MHz pulse of 600 ns duration. Some 20000 line kilometres of ice thickness data were recorded in the Dome Fuji region, Antarctica. These data contain the corrected and ungridded product. The original gridded product is available through doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.891323 (Karlsson et al., 2018).

Changes in past atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations can be determined by measuring the composition of air trapped in ice cores from Antarctica. So far, the Antarctic Vostok and EPICA Dome C ice cores have provided a composite record of atmospheric carbon dioxide levels over the past 650,000 years. Here we present results of the lowest 200 m of the Dome C ice core, extending the record of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration by two complete glacial cycles to 800,000 yr before present. From previously published data and the present work, we find that atmospheric carbon dioxide is strongly correlated with Antarctic temperature throughout eight glacial cycles but with significantly lower concentrations between 650,000 and 750,000 yr before present. Carbon dioxide levels are below 180 parts per million by volume (p.p.m.v.) for a period of 3,000 yr during Marine Isotope Stage 16, possibly reflecting more pronounced oceanic carbon storage. We report the lowest carbon dioxide concentration measured in an ice core, which extends the pre-industrial range of carbon dioxide concentrations during the late Quaternary by about 10 p.p.m.v. to 172-300 p.p.m.v.