Abstract. The EPICA Dome C (EDC) ice core provides the longest
continuous climatic record, covering the last 800 000 years (800 kyr). A
unique opportunity to investigate decadal to millennial variability during
past glacial and interglacial periods is provided by the high-resolution
water isotopic record (δ18O and δD) available for the
EDC ice core. We present here a continuous compilation of the EDC water
isotopic record at a sample resolution of 11 cm, which consists of 27 000
δ18O measurements and 7920 δD measurements (covering,
respectively, 94 % and 27 % of the whole EDC record), including
published and new measurements (2900 for both δ18O and δD) for the last 800 kyr. Here, we demonstrate that repeated water isotope
measurements of the same EDC samples from different depth intervals obtained using different analytical methods are comparable within analytical uncertainty. We thus combine all available EDC water isotope measurements to
generate a high-resolution (11 cm) dataset for the past 800 kyr. A
frequency decomposition of the most complete δ18O record and a
simple assessment of the possible influence of diffusion on the measured
profile shows that the variability at the multi-decadal to multi-centennial
timescale is higher during glacial than during interglacial periods and
higher during early interglacial isotopic maxima than during the Holocene.
This analysis shows as well that during interglacial periods characterized
by a temperature optimum at the beginning, the multi-centennial variability
is strongest over this temperature optimum.
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