The DO-climate events are probably noise induced: statistical investigation of the claimed 1470 years cycle

Climate of the Past, 3, 129-134, 2007
P.D. Ditlevsen, K.K. Andersen and A. Svensson
Ice and Climate, The Niels Bohr Institute, Juliane Maries Vej 30, DK-2100 Copenhagen, Denmark

ABSTRACT.
The significance of the apparent 1470 years cycle in the recurrence of the Dansgaard-Oeschger (DO) events, observed in the Greenland ice cores, is debated. Here we present statistical significance tests of this periodicity. The detection of a periodicity relies strongly on the accuracy of the dating of the DO events. Here we use both the new NGRIP GICC05 time scale based on multi-parameter annual layer counting and the GISP2 time scale where the periodicity is most pronounced. For the NGRIP dating the recurrence times are indistinguishable from a random occurrence. This is also the case for the GISP2 dating, except in the case where the DO9 event is omitted from the record.