CACHE-PEP: Natural climate variability - extending the Americas Pole-Equator-Pole paleoclimate transect through the Antarctic Peninsula to the Pole

To determine how the climate of the Antarctic Peninsula during the Holocene (last 10,000 years) is related to global scale patterns and trends, in order to understand the significance of current environmental changes in the region

If we are to trust models used to predict future climate change, we need to be assured that they can reproduce the spatial and temporal pattern of natural climate variability. IGBP-PAGES recognised this by setting up the PEP (Pole-Equator-Pole) traverses, which aim to determine the climate, especially throughout the Holocene, along continental transects. However, the PEPs end in mid-latitudes in the southern hemisphere, and have not been integrated with the records available from the Antarctic continent. The Antarctic Peninsula (AP) bridges that gap. CACHE-PEP will seek to place the (mainly) Holocene variability of AP and Antarctic climate in the context of global variability, as a contribution to understanding the significance of recent changes. It will do this by explicitly extending the PEP-I (Americas) transect through the AP. * Produce the first complete Holocene ice core climate record truly from the AP, through a bedrock drilling project at James Ross Island (JRI-in collaboration with LGGE in Grenoble) * Produce new lake sediment climate records from the AP to tie in with JRI and Berkner Island ice cores; new marine records of sea ice extent, sea surface temperatures, and other oceanographic variables from the northern and southern limits of the AP part of the transect * Integrate the AP record into the PEP1 transect, linking it to the Antarctic continent * A rigorous chronological and statistical assessment of the position of AP climate change vis-`-vis global Holocene climate change, in order to understand the main drivers