Decadal-scale variability in long-range atmospheric transport to the Summit of the Greenland Ice Sheet

Ice cores extracted from the Summit of the Greenland Ice Sheet date to >110 kyr b.p. and reveal fluctuations in chemical and physical characteristics on time scales ranging from days to millenia. Long-range atmospheric transport patterns contribute substantially to variability in both airborne and snow-deposited chemical species, and are thus one of the most important considerations in assessing climate variability preserved in polar ice cores. Here we present new evidence of decadal-scale climate variability through an analysis of 44 years of modeled, 10-day air trajectories arriving daily at Summit, Greenland. Trajectory residence times over specific upwind regions reveal interannual oscillations with periods of 4-14 years, and are correlated with three climate teleconnection indices. Our results suggest that the observed link between upstream source regions and the phases of large-scale climate oscillations may be exploited to further understand paleoclimatic oscillations.