Ice core stable isotope data, Eclipse Icefield, St. Elias Mountains, 1398-2016 CE (Common Era)

This dataset contains updated ice core stable isotope records in the NE Pacific through the collection of new ice core and geophysical data at a site in the St. Elias Range (Eclipse Icefield). Our objectives were to: 1) develop bedrock topography maps of the Eclipse Icefield sites; 2) determine surface velocities at all sites; 3) map near-surface spatial accumulation rate patterns; 4) trace internal isochrones at all sites; 5) estimate ice deformation effects on layer thinning; and 6) produce updated (to 2016) and corrected accumulation and stable isotope time series at Eclipse Icefield. The file contains ice core stable isotope (delta 18 O and deltaD) data from 1398-2016 CE (Common Era), reconstructed from three different ice cores at Eclipse Icefield. Paleoclimate data from the Pacific basin show significant hydroclimate changes over the past millennium, possibly in response to changes in the mean state of the El Niño Southern Oscillation. One hypothesis invokes a change from a persistent La Niña-like state during the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA) to a persistent El Niño-like state during the Little Ice Age (LIA). A test of this hypothesis is to reconstruct and evaluate the spatial precipitation anomaly pattern in the Northeast Pacific across the MCA-LIA transition, because modern observations show an enhanced (weaker) coastal-inland precipitation gradient in the region during La Niña (El Niño) conditions. We therefore predict that the NE Pacific precipitation anomaly pattern will weaken across the MCA-LIA transition, and also be reflected in ice core stable isotope data.