Extensive retreat and re-advance of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet during the Holocene

J. Kingslake (), R. P. Scherer, T. Albrecht, J. Coenen, R. D. Powell, R. Reese, N. D. Stansell, S. Tulaczyk, M. G. Wearing and P. L. Whitehouse
Additional contact information
J. Kingslake: Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University
R. P. Scherer: Northern Illinois University
T. Albrecht: Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), Member of the Leibniz Association
J. Coenen: Northern Illinois University
R. D. Powell: Northern Illinois University
R. Reese: Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), Member of the Leibniz Association
N. D. Stansell: Northern Illinois University
S. Tulaczyk: University of California Santa Cruz
M. G. Wearing: Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University
P. L. Whitehouse: Durham University

Nature, 2018, vol. 558, issue 7710, 430-434

Abstract: Abstract To predict the future contributions of the Antarctic ice sheets to sea-level rise, numerical models use reconstructions of past ice-sheet retreat after the Last Glacial Maximum to tune model parameters 1 . Reconstructions of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet have assumed that it retreated progressively throughout the Holocene epoch (the past 11,500 years or so)2–4. Here we show, however, that over this period the grounding line of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (which marks the point at which it is no longer in contact with the ground and becomes a floating ice shelf) retreated several hundred kilometres inland of today’s grounding line, before isostatic rebound caused it to re-advance to its present position. Our evidence includes, first, radiocarbon dating of sediment cores recovered from beneath the ice streams of the Ross Sea sector, indicating widespread Holocene marine exposure; and second, ice-penetrating radar observations of englacial structure in the Weddell Sea sector, indicating ice-shelf grounding. We explore the implications of these findings with an ice-sheet model. Modelled re-advance of the grounding line in the Holocene requires ice-shelf grounding caused by isostatic rebound. Our findings overturn the assumption of progressive retreat of the grounding line during the Holocene in West Antarctica, and corroborate previous suggestions of ice-sheet re-advance 5 . Rebound-driven stabilizing processes were apparently able to halt and reverse climate-initiated ice loss. Whether these processes can reverse present-day ice loss 6 on millennial timescales will depend on bedrock topography and mantle viscosity—parameters that are difficult to measure and to incorporate into ice-sheet models.

Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0208-x Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:558:y:2018:i:7710:d:10.1038_s41586-018-0208-x

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-018-0208-x

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().