Optimisation of glaciological parameters for ice core chronology by implementing counted layers between identified depth levels
Abstract. A~recent coherent chronology has been built for 4 Antarctic ice cores and the NorthGRIP (NGRIP) Greenland ice core (Antarctic Ice Core Chronology 2012, AICC2012) using a bayesian approach for ice core dating (Datice). When building the AICC2012 chronology, and in order to prevent any confusion with official ice cores chronology, it has been imposed that the AICC2012 chronology for NGRIP should respect exactly the GICC05 chronology based on layer counting. However, such a strong tuning did not satisfy the hypothesis of independence of background parameters and observations for the NGRIP core as required by Datice. We present here the implementation in Datice of a new type of markers that is better suited to constraints deduced from layer counting: the markers of age-difference. Using this type of markers for NGRIP in a 5 cores dating exercise with Datice, we have performed several sensitivity tests and show that the new ice core chronologies obtained with these new markers do not differ by more than 400 years from AICC2012 for Antarctic ice cores and by more than 130 years from GICC05 for NGRIP over the last 60 000 years. With this new parameterization, the accumulation rate and lock-in depth associated with NGRIP are more coherent with independent estimates than those obtained in AICC2012. While these new chronologies should not be used yet as new ice core chronologies, the improved methodology presented here should be considered in the next coherent ice core dating exercise.