Thompson, L.G., D.A. Peel, E. Mosley-Thompson, R. Mulvaney, J. Dai, P.N. Lin, M.E. Davis and C.F. Raymond. 1994

Climate since A.D. 1510 on Dyer Plateau, Antarctic Peninsula: Evidence for recent climate change
Annals of Glaciology, 20, 420-426.

A 480-year history is emerging from the oxygen isotopic ratios, dust content, chemical species and net accumulation records from ice cores drilled in 1989/90 on the Dyer Plateau in the Antarctic Peninsula. The continuous analyses of very small samples reveal well preserved annual variations in both sulfate content and 18O, thus allowing an excellent time scale to be established.

This history reveals a recent pronounced warming in which the last two decades have been among the warmest in the last five centuries. Further, unlike in East Antarctica, on the Dyer Plateau the "Little Ice Age" was relatively warm. Cooler conditions dominated from 1850 to 1930 A.D. and since then a warming trend has dominated the region. Reconstructed annual layer thicknesses suggest an increase in net accumulation beginning early in the nineteenth century and continuing to the present. This intuitive conflict between increasing net accumulation and depleted (cooler) 18O in the nineteenth century appears wide spread in the Peninsula region and challenges our understanding of the physical relationships among moisture sources, air temperatures and snow accumulation. The complex meteorological regime in the Antarctic Peninsula region complicates meaningful interpretation of proxy indicators and results in a strong imprint of local high frequency processes upon the larger-scale climate picture.