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"Claude Lorius"
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Origin(s) of Antarctica's Wilkes Subglacial Basin
The Wilkes Subglacial Basin (WSB), the largest subglacial basin in East Antarctica, is a topographic depression of continental proportions that lies beneath the East Antarctic continental ice sheet. Discovered by the US Victoria Land Traverse 1959–60, the origin of the WSB and the influence of palaeoclimate on its overlying continental ice sheet have remained uncertain since the time of its discovery. Most explanations of origin favour lithospheric structural control as a function of tectonic activity. Lithospheric flexure due to thermally or isostatically induced uplift of the Transantarctic Mountains was suggested in the 1980s. Lithospheric extension and rifting was proposed in the 1990s. More recent investigations have revealed the presence of fold and thrust belts, casting doubt on flexural and extensional hypotheses as the primary mechanisms, suggesting instead a compressional scenario. While remaining inconclusive, these tectonic mechanisms in one form or another, or in combination, are now believed to have provided the structural control for the origin of the WSB. Not yet comprehensively examined, however, is the role of non-tectonic processes in the formation of the WSB, as they may have influenced the size, configuration, subglacial sedimentation and subglacial topography of the WSB. In this paper we review the tectonic hypotheses and examine post-tectonic climate change along with glacial and marine processes as potentially significant factors in the present condition and configuration of the WSB. In the process, we find that there are a number of features not included in previous investigations that may have been major factors in the modification of the subglacial basin.
Journal Article
The White Planet
From the Arctic Ocean and ice sheets of Greenland, to the glaciers of the Andes and Himalayas, to the great frozen desert of Antarctica,The White Planettakes readers on a spellbinding scientific journey through the shrinking world of ice and snow to tell the story of the expeditions and discoveries that have transformed our understanding of global climate. Written by three internationally renowned scientists at the center of many breakthroughs in ice core and climate science, this book provides an unparalleled firsthand account of how the \"white planet\" affects global climate--and how, in turn, global warming is changing the frozen world.
Jean Jouzel, Claude Lorius, and Dominique Raynaud chronicle the daunting scientific, technical, and human hurdles that they and other scientists have had to overcome in order to unravel the mysteries of past and present climate change, as revealed by the cryosphere--the dynamic frozen regions of our planet. Scientifically impeccable, up-to-date, and accessible,The White Planetbrings cutting-edge climate research to general readers through a vivid narrative. This is an essential book for anyone who wants to understand the inextricable link between climate and our planet's icy regions.
eBook
Climate and atmospheric history of the past 420,000 years from the Vostok ice core, Antarctica
The recent completion of drilling at Vostok station in East Antarctica has allowed the extension of the ice record of atmospheric composition and climate to the past four glacial–interglacial cycles. The succession of changes through each climate cycle and termination was similar, and atmospheric and climate properties oscillated between stable bounds. Interglacial periods differed in temporal evolution and duration. Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane correlate well with Antarctic air-temperature throughout the record. Present-day atmospheric burdens of these two important greenhouse gases seem to have been unprecedented during the past 420,000 years.
Journal Article
La glace et le ciel = Ice and the sky
From Oscar®-winning director Luc Jacquet (March of the Penguins) comes a stirring portrait of French glaciologist Claude Lorius, whose groundbreaking research in Antarctica gave us the first clear evidence of man-made global climate change.
Streaming Video
The Wilkes Land Anomaly revisited
The Wilkes Land Gravity Anomaly, first reported in 1959–60, is located in northern Victoria Land in the Pacific Ocean sector of East Antarctica, 1400 km west of the Ross Sea and centred at 70°00'S-140°00'E. Initially described on the basis of ground-based seismic and gravity survey, and estimated at the time to have a diameter of 243 km, the original data are now supplemented by data from airborne radiosound survey, airborne gravity survey, airborne magnetic survey and satellite remote sensing. These new data enable us to expand upon the original data, and reveal that the structure has a diameter of some 510 km, is accompanied by ice streams and a chaotically disturbed region of the continental ice sheet, has a subglacial topographical relief of ≥1500 m, and exhibits a negative free air gravity anomaly associated with a larger central positive free air gravity anomaly. The feature has been described as a volcanic structure, an igneous intrusion, an ancient igneous diapir, a subglacial sedimentary basin, a glacially eroded subglacial valley, a tectonic feature and a meteorite impact crater. We re-examine the feature on the basis of these collective data, with emphasis on the free air gravity anomaly signs, magnitudes and patterns, magnetic signature magnitudes and patterns, and the size, shape, dimensions and morphology of the structure. This enhanced view adds substantially to the original description provided at the time of discovery, and suggests several explanations for the origin of the Wilkes Land Anomaly. However, the importance of this feature lies not only in determining its origin but by the fact that this part of the Wilkes Subglacial Basin is one of the most prominent regional negative geoid and associated gravity anomalies of the Antarctic continent.
Journal Article
The Last 10,000 Years
The calm after the storm: this is the image we have from the climatic records of polar regions. In Antarctica the contrast between the hills and the valleys that followed each other during the last glacial period, then the deglaciation, and the stability of those same records since the beginning of the Holocene, a bit more than 10,000 years ago, is clear. And above all, there is nothing in common between the highs and the lows, rapid warming and slower cooling, which punctuated the temperature variations in Greenland between 100,000 years ago and the end of the Younger Dryas, 11,500
Book Chapter
Vostok
The termcornucopia, attributed by the journalNatureto the Antarctic Vostok ice core drilling, deserves explanation. In the mid-1980s, our knowledge of the great glacial/interglacial cycles that marked the Quaternary essentially rested on the study of marine sediments. Thanks to them the astronomical theory, which stipulates the existence of a connection between the variations in insolation linked to the slow evolution of the Earth’s orbit and those great climatic cycles, had been very widely accepted. In the wake of the article published inSciencein 1976 by Jim Hays, John Imbrie, and Nick Shackleton, who established the connection, paleoceanographers
Book Chapter
The Crucial Place of Research
In this book we have traveled the white planet, the one formed by the ice, which for the most part is found in the polar regions. We have gone deep within the inland ice sheets, in Antarctica and Greenland, to discover the wealth of the glacial archives. The warning sign we have been given cannot leave us indifferent: in this new era, the Anthropocene, humans mark the environment of their planet with their imprint and above all the climate in which they live. Our message aims to help convince citizens and policymakers of the urgency of the measures that must
Book Chapter
Glacial Archives
In this extremely rich context, one might think that the glacial archives from those very distant polar regions are of only marginal, almost anecdotal interest. This isn’t true. Although it is true that reconstructing the temperatures in Greenland or in Antarctica adds only a few more sites, the possibility of looking in detail at the evolution of the climate through the years, and over very long periods, is unequaled. Above all, glacial archives are unique because of their ability to trap the atmosphere of the past and, thanks to their extreme purity, to retain traces of the slightest effect, whether
Book Chapter