Simulating ice core <sup>10</sup>Be on the glacial–interglacial timescale
Abstract. 10Be ice core measurements are an important tool for paleoclimate research, e.g. allowing for the reconstruction of past solar activity or variation in the natural 14C production rate. However, especially on multi-millennial timescales, the share of production and climate induced variations of respective 10Be ice core records is still up to debate. Here we present the first quantitative climatological model of the 10Be ice concentration up to the glacial–interglacial timescale. The model approach is composed of (i) a coarse resolution global atmospheric transport model and (ii) a local 10Be air–firn-transfer model. Extensive global-scale observational data of short-lived radionuclides as well as new polar 10Be snow pit measurements are used for model calibration and validation. Being specifically configured for polar 10Be, this tool thus allows for a straight-forward investigation of production and non-production related modulation of this nuclide. We find that the polar 10Be ice concentration does not record a globally mixed cosmogenic production signal. In fact, the geomagnetic modulation of Greenland 10Be is up to 50% lower than in case of the global atmospheric 10Be inventory. Using geomagnetic modulation and revised Greenland snow accumulation rate changes as model input we simulate the observed Greenland Summit (GRIP and GISP2) 10Be ice core records over the last 75 kyr (on the GICC05modelext timescale). We show that our basic model is capable to reproduce the largest portion of the observed 10Be changes. However, model-measurements differences exhibit multi-millennial oscillations with amplitudes up to 87% of the mean observed Holocene 10Be concentration. Focusing on the (12–37) kyr b2k (before the year 2000 AD) period, mean model-measurements differences of 30% cannot be imputed to production changes. However, unconsidered climate-induced changes could likely explain the model shortcomings. In fact, the 10Be ice concentration is very sensitive to snow accumulation changes. Here the reconstructed Greenland Summit (GRIP) snow accumulation rate record would require revision of +28% to solely account for the (12–37) kyr b2k measurements-model differences.