The Long-Term Cooling Trend in East Antarctic Plateau Over the Past 2000 Years Is Only Robust Between 550 and 1550 CE

The uncertainties in Antarctic climate reconstructions due to scarcity of proxy records have restricted the understanding of mechanisms of climate change, and further hindered the improvement of climate models. Here, we provide a new climate record derived from water stable isotopes in a Dome A, East Antarctica ice core. Together with six other ice core records, the Dome A record is used to investigate temperature changes in East Antarctic Plateau (EAP) during period 1–1900 CE. Our results show that, a previously reported long-term cooling trend in EAP during the recent (pre-1900 CE) 1900 years is only robust between 550 and 1550 CE. A combination of solar and volcanic forcing may have induced the EAP centennial-scale cold events, and further caused the long-term cooling trend from 550 to 1550 CE with a small contribution from orbital forcing.