The ice core record: past archive of the climate and signpost to the future

International audienceIce cores from Antarctica provide multi proxy records of climate and environmental parameters. They have recorded glacial-interglacial temperature changes with cold stages associated with lower snow accumulation and high concentration of aerosols from marine and continental sources. The 160000- year-long Vostok isotope tem perature record exhibits signatures of the insolation orbital forcing as well as a close association between climate and greenhouse gas concentrations. These gases are likely to have played an im portant role in amplifying the am plitude of past global tem perature changes. Data from the ice show evidence of anthropogenic im pact on atm ospheric greenhouse gases (CO 2 and CH 4 ) over the past 200 years. They suggest a climate sensitivity to greenhouse forcing which is consistent with General Circulation Models simulations for a future doubled atmospheric CO 2 . Further ice coring in Antarctica should help to improve our understanding of the climate system