QUEST Quaternary: Marine isotope and glacial cycle model data (150,000 years ago to present)

Quaternary QUEST was led by Dr Tim Lenton at UEA, with a team of 10 co-investigators at the Universities of Cambridge, Oxford, Reading, Leeds, Bristol, Southampton and at UEA.

This dataset collection contains glacial and isotope model data.

Over the last million years, the Earth has experienced a sequence of temperature oscillations between glacial and interglacial states, linked to variations in the Earth’s orbit around the sun. These climate oscillations were accompanied by changes in atmospheric CO2, but the fundamental reasons for this relationship are still unresolved.

This project team aimed to compile a synthesis of palaeodata from sediments and ice cores, improve the synchronization of these records with each other, and use this greater understanding of the Earth’s ancient atmosphere to improve Earth system models simulating climate over very long timescales. A combined long-term data synthesis and modelling approach has helped to constrain some key mechanisms responsible for glacial-interglacial CO2 change, and Quaternary QUEST narrowed the field of ocean processes that could have caused glacial CO2 drawdown.

由英国东安格利亚大学（UEA）的Tim Lenton博士领导的第四纪问题研究（Quaternary QUEST），汇聚了来自剑桥、牛津、雷丁、利兹、布里斯托尔和南安普顿等大学的10位共同调查员。该数据集收集了冰川和同位素模型数据。
在过去的一百万年中，地球经历了冰川与间冰期状态的温度振荡序列，这一现象与地球围绕太阳公转的轨道变化密切相关。这些气候振荡伴随着大气中二氧化碳的变化，但这一关系的根本原因尚未得到解决。
该项目团队致力于整合沉积物和冰芯的古代数据，优化这些记录之间的同步，并利用对地球古代大气的深入理解来改善模拟极长时间尺度气候的地球系统模型。结合长期数据综合和建模方法有助于限制一些关键机制，这些机制负责冰川-间冰期二氧化碳变化，第四纪问题研究缩小了可能导致冰川二氧化碳下降的海洋过程范围。