ANTARCTIC AND SOUTHERN OCEAN FUTURE DRILLING WORKSHOP

Valuable insights into the future sensitivity of the Antarctic cryosphere to atmospheric and oceanic warming can be gained from long-term geologic records of how it changed during past warm periods. While paleoclimate records spanning hundreds of thousands of years have been obtained from Antarctic ice cores, continental outcrops and margin to deep ocean sediments cores provide records of contemporaneous changes in ice sheet extent and oceanographic conditions, that extend farther back in time, including periods with atmospheric CO2 levels and temperatures similar to those that are likely to be reached in the next 100 to 200 years.