Mount Hunter (Denali National Park) Alaska ice core radiocarbon (14-Carbon) data, 2013

Investigation of North Pacific climate variability during warm intervals outside of the Common Era is essential for addressing questions regarding ocean-atmosphere teleconnections between low latitudes and the Arctic under future warming scenarios. However, most of existing ice cores extracted from Alaska/Yukon region archive climate information from the last few centuries. This dataset contains radiocarbon (14C) data from a 208 meter surface-to-bedrock ice core recovered from the summit plateau of Mt. Hunter in central Alaska in 2013. By applying radiocarbon dating on carbonaceous aerosols, a continuous depth-age relationship has been established in the Mt. Hunter ice core. Calibrated 14C ages from the two lowest samples (7,946-10,226 cal BP and 7,018-7,975 cal BP) indicate that basal ice on Mt. Hunter has an early Holocene (> 8 kyr) origin. We also show that samples from depth of 161.0-166.1 m weq have nearly uniform 14C ages (3,200 to 3,500 cal BP). One possible explanation is an increase in snow accumulation at Mt. Hunter during regional neoglaciation. When paired with the Mt. Logan PRCol record, the only other Holocene-length ice core from North Pacific region, the Mt. Hunter ice core provides the possibility to investigate spatial changes in high-elevation Holocene hydroclimate.

探究公元前暖期的北太平洋气候变率，对于解答未来增温情景下低纬度与北极之间的海-气遥相关科学问题至关重要。然而，目前从阿拉斯加/育空地区钻取的多数现有冰芯，仅记录了近数个世纪的气候信息。本数据集包含2013年从阿拉斯加中部亨特山（Mt. Hunter）峰顶高原钻取的一根总长208米、从地表直达基岩的冰芯的放射性碳（radiocarbon, ¹⁴C）数据。通过对碳质气溶胶开展放射性碳定年，本研究已建立亨特山冰芯的连续深度-年代标尺。对两个最底部样品的校准¹⁴C年龄（7946~10226校准年代距今年（cal BP）与7018~7975校准年代距今年（cal BP））显示，亨特山的基底冰形成于早全新世（距今超8千年，>8 kyr）。本研究同时发现，深度为161.0~166.1米水当量（m weq）的样品，其¹⁴C年龄近乎均一，区间为3200~3500 cal BP。一种可能的解释是，在区域新冰期（neoglaciation）期间，亨特山的降雪量出现增加。若与北太平洋地区仅有的另一根全新世尺度冰芯——洛根山（Mt. Logan）PRCol记录相结合，亨特山冰芯将为探究高海拔区域全新世水文气候的空间变化提供可行途径。