Reversible ice sheet thinning in the Amundsen Sea Embayment during the Late Holocene

Balco, Greg; Brown, Nathan; Nichols, Keir; Venturelli, Ryan A.; Adams, Jonathan; Braddock, Scott; Campbell, Seth; Goehring, Brent; Johnson, Joanne S. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4537-4447; Rood, Dylan H.; Wilcken, Klaus; Hall, Brenda; Woodward, John. 2023 Reversible ice sheet thinning in the Amundsen Sea Embayment during the Late Holocene. The Cryosphere, 17 (4). 1787-1801. 10.5194/tc-17-1787-2023

Before downloading, please read NORA policies.

Preview

Text (Open Access) © Author(s) 2023. tc-17-1787-2023.pdf - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. Download (8MB) | Preview

Abstract/Summary

Cosmogenic-nuclide concentrations in subglacial bedrock cores show that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) at a site between Thwaites and Pope glaciers was at least 35 m thinner than present in the past several thousand years and then subsequently thickened. This is important because of concern that present thinning and grounding line retreat at these and nearby glaciers in the Amundsen Sea Embayment may irreversibly lead to deglaciation of significant portions of the WAIS, with decimeter- to meter-scale sea level rise within decades to centuries. A past episode of ice sheet thinning that took place in a similar, although not identical, climate was not irreversible. We propose that the past thinning–thickening cycle was due to a glacioisostatic rebound feedback, similar to that invoked as a possible stabilizing mechanism for current grounding line retreat, in which isostatic uplift caused by Early Holocene thinning led to relative sea level fall favoring grounding line advance.

Item Type:	Publication - Article
Digital Object Identifier (DOI):	10.5194/tc-17-1787-2023
Date made live:	15 Sep 2022 13:26 +0 (UTC)
URI:	https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/532294

Actions (login required)

View Item

Document Downloads

More statistics for this item...