Deep ice cores from Antarctica, covering multiple glacial cycles, have provided an invaluable insight into climate dynamics on orbital and shorter timescales. Chronology is vital to the use of this archive. It is now timely to update the widely used EDC3 age scale. A new age scale is planned that will use modern Bayesian techniques to incorporate data from several different cores, along with improved dates and uncertainty estimates for individual age markers. The special issue will include papers that contribute information to the new AICC2012 age scale. This will include papers that propose new fixed markers and age constraints, new age estimates for existing markers, synchronisations between cores, ways to handle glaciological constraints, as well as papers discussing the overall methodology and presenting the new age scale itself.