A tentative reconstruction of the last interglacial and glacial inception in Greenland based on new gas measurements in the Greenland Ice Core Project (GRIP) ice core 

Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 108, No. D18, 4563, doi:10.1029/2002JD003147, 2003 

A. Landair, J. Jouzel, C. Bourg, S. Cherrier and V. Masson-Delmotte
IPSL/Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement, CEA-CNRS, Gif sur Yvette, France.
J. Chappellaz and D. Raynaud
Laboratoire de Glaciologie et Géophysique de l'Environnement, CNRS, Saint Martin d'Hères, France.
M. Delmotte
Laboratoire de Glaciologie et Géophysique de l'Environnement, CNRS, Saint Martin d'Hères, France.
Now at Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, Laboratoire de Cosmochimie et G&eacuteochimie, CNRS, Paris, France.
T. Blunier and J. Schwander
Climate and Environmental Physics, Physics Institute, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.
N. Caillon
IPSL/Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement, CEA-CNRS, Gif sur Yvette, France.
Now at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, California, USA.
B. Malaizé
IPSL/Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement, CEA-CNRS, Gif sur Yvette, France.
Now at D&eacutepartement deGéologie et Oc&eacuteanographie, UMR CNRS 5805 EPOC, Université Bordeaux 1, Talence, France.
J.P. Steffensen
Geofysisk Afdeling, Niels Bohr Instituttet for Astronomi, Fysik og Geofysik, Københavns Universitet

ABSTRACT.
The disturbed stratigraphy of the ice in the lowest 10% of the Greenland GRIP ice core prevents direct access to climatic information older than 110 kyr. This is especially regretful since this period covers the previous interglacial corresponding to marine isotopic stage 5e (MIS 5e, 130-120 kyr B.P.). Here we present a tentative reconstruction of the disturbed GRIP chronology based on the succession of globally well mixed gas parameters. The GRIP δ¹⁸O_ice chronological sequence is obtained by comparing a new set of δ¹⁸O of atmospheric O₂ and CH₄ measurements from the bottom section of the GRIP core with their counterpart in the Vostok Antarctic profiles. This comparison clearly identifies ice from the penultimate glacial maximum (MIS 6, 190-130 kyr B.P.) in the GRIP core. Further it allows rough reconstruction of the last interglacial period and of the last glacial inception in Greenland which appears to lay its Antarctic counterpart. Our data suggest that while Antarctica is already entering into a glaciation, Greenland is still experiencing a warm maximum during MIS 5e.