IPCC Fourth Assessment Report: Climate Change 2007
Climate Change 2007: Working Group I: The Physical Science Basis

The Arctic and the Last Interglacial

Figure TS.21

Figure TS.21. Summer surface air temperature change relative to the present over the Arctic (left) and ice thickness and extent for Greenland and western arctic glaciers (right) for the last interglacial, approximately 125,000 years ago, from a multi-model and multi-proxy synthesis. (Left) A multi-model simulation of summer warming during the last interglacial is overlain by proxy estimates of maximum summer warming from terrestrial (circles) and marine (diamonds) sites. (Right) Extents and thicknesses of the Greenland Ice Sheet and western Canadian and Iceland glaciers at their minimum extent during the last interglacial, shown as a multi-model average from three ice models. Ice core observations indicate ice during the last interglacial at sites (white dots), Renland (R), North Greenland Ice Core Project (N), Summit (S, GRIP and GISP2) and possibly Camp Century (C), but no ice at sites (black dots): Devon (De) and Agassiz (A).Evidence for LIG ice at Dye-3 (D, grey dot) is equivocal. {Figure 6.6}