A 108.83-m ice-core record of atmospheric dust deposition at Mt. Qomolangma (Everest), Central Himalaya Jianzhong Xu a , Shugui Hou a,f, ⁎, Dahe Qin a , Susan Kaspari b , Paul Andrew Mayewski b , Jean Robert Petit c , Barbara Delmonte c , Shichang Kang d , Jiawen Ren a , Jerome Chappellaz c , Sungmin Hong e a State Key Laboratory of Cryospheric Sciences (SKLCS), Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Lanzhou, China b Climate Change Institute (CCI) and Department of Earth Sciences, University of Maine, Orono ME 04469, USA c Laboratoire de Glaciologie et Géophysique de l'Environnement (LGGE), CNRS-Université Joseph Fourier, St Martin d'Hères, France d Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research (ITP), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing, China e Korea Polar Research Institute (KOPRI), Incheon 406-840, Korea f MOE, Key Laboratory for Coast and Island Development, School of Geographic and Oceanographic Sciences (SGOS), Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China abstract article info Article history: Received 30 October 2007 Available online 5 November 2009 Keywords: Dust Ice core Qomolangma (Everest) Himalaya The central Himalaya can be regarded as an ideal site for developing a long-term ice core dust record to reflect the environmental signals from regional to semi-hemispheric scales. Here we present a dust record from segments of a 108.83-m ice core recovered from the East Rongbuk (ER) Glacier (27°59′N, 86°55′E; 6518 m a.s.l.) on the northeast slope of Mt. Qomolangma (Everest) in the central Himalaya, covering the period AD 600–1960. Due to rapidly layer thinning and coarse sampling, we primarily discuss the changes in the dust record since AD 1500 in this paper. Results show a significant positive relationship between the dust concentration and reconstructed air temperatures during this period, suggesting a likely cold–humid and warm–dry climatic pattern in the dust source regions, namely Central Asia. This is associated with the variability in the strength of the westerlies and its corresponding precipitation. © 2009 University of Washington. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Introduction Mineral dust plays an important role in paleoclimate studies because it can be used as a proxy of continent aridity and changes in global wind systems. For this reason, ice core dust records are useful in deducing past changes in atmospheric circulation and climatic regime in the dust source regions (e.g., Petit et al., 1999). Eolian activities are prevalent in the arid and semi-arid environment of Central Asia, which is usually regarded as a primary source of dust storms in the world (Prospero et al., 2002). Thus, the dust storm history from those regions is crucial for understanding changes of the regional environment and atmospheric circulation. For instance, Thompson et al. (2000) suggested that the high dust-concentration events of an ice core recovered from the Dasuopu Glacier in the central Himalaya, which is about 125 km northwest away from the East Rongbuk (ER) Glacier, were consistent with historical droughts in India. By using a shallow ice core recovered from the ER Glacier, Xu et al. (2007a) found a close relationship between the dust storm activity in Central Asia and the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) during past ∼ 50 yr. Thompson et al. (2000) observed a positive relationship between the dust and δ 18 O records (a proxy for temperature) in the Dasuopu ice core during the period AD 1440–1997, and they attributed the possible reasons to reduction in snow cover, enhanced aridity, and/or increased agricultural activity in the dust source regions. However, the mechanism behind these relationships is not well established. Here we focus on a new ice-core dust record from the ER Glacier with the goal of reconstructing the environmental change in the arid and semi-arid areas of Central Asia, and we speculate on the possible mechanisms relating dust and temperature. The term “dust” of this paper is used as a synonym for insoluble particles. Data and methods A 108.83-m-long ice core to bedrock was recovered in September– October 2002 on the saddle of the ER Glacier (Fig. 1). The ER Glacier covers an area of 48.45 km 2 with a length of 14 km. Repeated surveys using a Global Positioning System (GPS) in 1998 and 2002 did not identify horizontal movement at the drilling site. The high accumu- lation (∼ 50 cm water equivalent/yr) and low mean annual temper- ature at the site result in the preservation of a high-resolution climate record (Hou et al., 2003). The ice core was maintained below -5 °C from the time of drilling until analysis. Ice core samples were selected from segments below 26.47 m (the close-off depth of this core is at ∼ 26.2 m (Hou et al., 2007)) down to the bottom part of the core. Each sample (∼ 50 g) corresponds to a length of 4–10 cm and covers durations from seasonal for the upper Quaternary Research 73 (2010) 33–38 ⁎ Corresponding author. Fax: +86(931)8277094. E-mail address: shugui@lzb.ac.cn (S. Hou). 0033-5894/$ – see front matter © 2009 University of Washington. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.yqres.2009.09.005 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Quaternary Research journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/yqres