High-resolution, well-dated climate archives provide an opportunity to investigate the dynamic interactions of climate patterns relevant for future projections. Here, we present data from a new, annually-dated ice core record from the eastern Ross Sea. Comparison of the Roosevelt Island Climate Evolution (RICE) ice core records with climate reanalysis data for the 1979-2012 calibration period shows that RICE records reliably capture temperature and snow precipitation variability of the region. RICE is compared with data from West Antarctica (West Antarctic Ice Sheet Divide Ice Core) and the western (Talos Dome) and eastern (Siple Dome) Ross Sea. For most of the past 2,700 years, the eastern Ross Sea was warming with perhaps increased snow accumulation and decreased sea ice extent. However, West Antarctica cooled whereas the western Ross Sea showed no significant temperature trend. From the 17th Century onwards, this relationship changes. All three regions now show signs of warming, with snow accumulation declining in West Antarctica and the eastern Ross Sea, but increasing in the western Ross Sea. Analysis of decadal to centennial-scale climate variability superimposed on the longer term trend reveal that periods characterised by opposing temperature trends between the Eastern and Western Ross Sea have occurred since the 3rd Century but are masked by longer-term trends. This pattern here is referred to as the Ross Sea Dipole, caused by a sensitive response of the region to dynamic interactions of the Southern Annual Mode and tropical forcings.

This data comprises the annually resolved RICE isotope record (dD) spanning the time period from 2012 CE to 699 BCE. The 763.4m deep RICE ice core was recovered to bedrock during the 2011/12 and 2012/13 field seasons. The core was processed during 2012/2013 and 2013/14 processing campaigns at the GNS Science National Ice Core Facility. This work is a contribution to the Roosevelt Island Climate Evolution (RICE) Program, funded by national contributions from New Zealand, Australia, Denmark, Germany, Italy, the People's Republic of China, Sweden, UK, and USA. The main logistics support was provided by Antarctica New Zealand (K049) and the US Antarctic Program.This dataset was updated on 2017-11-29 during the paper's review process. Isotope values changed from "annually resamped" to "annually averaged" data.

Supplement to: Bertler, Nancy A; Conway, Howard; Dahl-Jensen, Dorthe; Emanuelsson, Urban; Winstrup, Mai; Vallelonga, Paul T; Lee, James E; Brook, Edward J; Severinghaus, Jeffrey P; Fudge, Tyler J; Keller, Elizabeth D; Baisden, W Troy; Hindmarsh, Richard C A; Neff, Peter D; Blunier, Thomas; Edwards, Ross L; Mayewski, Paul Andrew; Kipfstuhl, Sepp; Buizert, Christo; Canessa, Silvia; Dadic, Ruzica; Kjær, Helle Astrid; Kurbatov, Andrei; Zhang, Dongqi; Waddington, Edwin D; Baccolo, Giovanni; Beers, Thomas; Brightley, Hannah J; Carter, Lionel; Clemens-Sewall, David; Ciobanu, Viorela G; Delmonte, Barbara; Eling, Lukas; Ellis, Aja A; Ganesh, Shruthi; Golledge, Nicholas R; Haines, Skylar A; Handley, Michael; Hawley, Robert L; Hogan, Chad M; Johnson, Katelyn M; Korotkikh, Elena; Lowry, Daniel P; Mandeno, Darcy; McKay, Robert M; Menking, James A; Naish, Timothy R; Noerling, Caroline; Ollive, Agathe; Orsi, Anais J; Proemse, Bernadette C; Pyne, Alexander R; Pyne, Rebecca L; Renwick, James; Scherer, Reed P; Semper, Stefanie; Simonsen, Marius; Sneed, Sharon B; Steig, Eric J; Tuohy, Andrea; Ulayottil Venugopal, Abhijith; Valero Delgado, Fernando; Venkatesh, Janani; Wang, Feitang; Wang, Shimeng; Winski, Dominic A; Winton, Victoria H L; Whiteford, Arran; Xiao, Cunde; Yang, Jiao; Zhang, Xin (2018): The Ross Sea dipole - temperature, snow accumulation and sea ice variability in the Ross Sea region, Antarctica, over the past 2700 years. Climate of the Past, 14, 193-214