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  • Presentation | C23C: Ice Core Records of Environmental Change II Poster
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  • C23C-0935: Ethane Measurements From an Ice Core From the Allan Hills Blue Ice Area in Antarctica Covering the Penultimate Glacial-Interglacial Transition
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  • Board 0935‚ Hall EFG (Poster Hall)
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Author(s):
Grace Gentner, Georgia Institute of Technology (First Author, Presenting Author)
Murat Aydin, University of California Irvine
Melinda Nicewonger, Oregon State University
Jennifer Campos Ayala, University of Bern
Edward Brook, Oregon State University
Jenna Epifanio, Oregon State University
Julia Marks Peterson, Oregon State University
Christo Buizert, Oregon State University
Austin Carter, Scripps Institution of Oceanography
Sarah Aarons, Scripps Institution of Oceanography
Alissa Choi, University of Wisconsin Madison


Biomass burning (wildfires) produce gases that affect our climate. Understanding past biomass burning patterns can show us what we might expect our future climate to look like as Earth continues to warm. Prior to the industrial revolution, the primary source of ethane was biomass burning. Measuring ethane allows us to estimate how much biomass burning occurred at a given point in the past.


The Eemian was an interglacial (warmer) period in Earth’s climate history occurring 130-115k years ago that was slightly warmer than today. The Holocene is the current interglacial, which started 11.7k years ago at the end of the last glacial (colder) period.


In this study, we measured ethane from ice core samples collected in the Allan Hills, Antarctica, that date back to the Eemian. The values were found to be much lower than similar measurements corresponding to the preindustrial Holocene. This implies that there was significantly more biomass burning in the current interglacial than during a previous period with a similar climate. It is not clear why a warmer climate would be associated with less biomass burning. One possible explanation is that human activities resulted in significant increases in biomass burning.




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