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Arctic Paleoceanography



Sea Ice History

Sea ice history over the last 50,000 years, an interval including the last glacial, deglacial and Holocene interglacial periods, has been studied using sediment cores and surface sediment samples from Arctic continental shelves, abyssal plains, the Lomonosov, Mendeleev, and Gakkel Ridges, the Yermak Plateau, and the Morris Jesup Rise. Figure 1 shows location of 682 surface sediments samples (black circles) and sediment core sites (red circles) used to study temporal patterns in Arctic circulation, temperature, and sea ice. The red line shows the position of mean September sea ice extent since 1979 based on satellite records from National Snow and Ice Data Center.

Figure 1

Figure 1.
Figure from Cronin et al., 2010.
Base map: International Bathymetric Chart of the Arctic Ocean (IBCAO)


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