Dorthe Dahl-Jensen, Niels Bohr Institute, Juliane Maries Vej 30, Copenhagen, 2100, Denmark
Several ice cores have been drilled though the Antarctic Ice Sheet revealing palaeoclimate histories that reach nearly one million years back in time. The ice cores records show in detail how climate has cycled between warm interglacial and cold glacial periods in accordance with astronomical theory. Concentrations of the greenhouses gasses in the past atmospheres, found in the air bubbles trapped in the ice, give unique information about the behaviour of the climate system in the past. Finally, when the climate and greenhouse records from Antarctic and Greenland ice cores are compared, we see the different roles of climate in the two hemispheres, where the south mainly consists of ocean and the north of the continents. The ocean conveyor belt plays a major role in redistribution of energy in the two hemispheres and this is discussed in relation to the records from north and south.
