Glaciochemical records from a Mt. Everest ice core: relationship to atmospheric circulation over Asia

Abstract

Glaciochemical records recovered from an 80.4 m ice core in the East Rongbuk (ER) Glacier (elevation: 6450 m) on the northern slope of Mt. Everest provide a reconstructing of past climate for the period AD 1846–1997. Empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis on the eight major ion (SO 4 2−, Mg 2+, Ca 2+, Na +, Cl −, NH 4 +, K +, and NO 3 −) time-series reveals inter-species relations and common structure within the ER glaciochemical data. The first two EOF series (EOF1-ions and EOF2-ions) are compared with instrumental data of sea level pressure (SLP) to demonstrate that the EOF-ions series display strong connections to winter (January) and summer (July) SLP over the Mongolian region. The positive relationship between EOF1-ions and the Mongolian High (MongHi) series suggests that enhanced winter MongHi strengthens the transport of dust aerosols southward from arid regions over central Asia to Mt. Everest. The close correspondence between EOF2-ions and the summer Mongolian Low (MongLow) indicates that the deeper MongLow, which is related to the stronger Indian Monsoon, contributes to a decrease in summer dust aerosols. Therefore, the ER ice core record comprises two assemblages of crustal species, each transported from different source regions during different seasons. EOF1-ions represents the majority of the crustal species and is related to winter atmospheric circulation patterns. These species are mainly transported from arid regions of central Asia during the winter dry season. EOF2-ions represents crustal species transported by summer atmospheric circulation from local/regional sources in the northern and southern Himalayas.