does an asymmetric thermohaline ice sheet oscillator drive 100 000 yr glacial cycles a hypothesis is presented that late quaternary 100 000 yr glacial cycles are driven by an asymmetric thermohaline ice sheet oscillator that emerged in the global climate system 650 000 950 000 yr ago perhaps when the main source of northern hemisphere deep water production shifted south from the arctic into the nordic seas it is hypothesised that the asymmetry is due to the increasing difficulty after 950 000 years ago of resetting an interglacial mode of the critical nordic limb of the salinity conveyor once it switches off and an ensuing iceberg flux enters the areas of downwelling a possible reason for both a southward shift and the resulting asymmetry is uplift of the greenland scotland submarine ridge from activity of the iceland mantle plume in this hypothesis an individual 100 000 yr glacial cycle begins when the northernmost limb of the salinity conveyor in the nordic seas is curtailed or even switched off perhaps due to the growing strength of competing antarctic bottom water aabw generated by interglacial recession of the west antarctic ice sheet wais from the west antarctic rift system such recession produces southern marginal seas where dense shelf water can collect and overflow into the abyss when northern ice sheets nucleated by this circulation switch develop marine components that calve icebergs into the nordic seas the salinity conveyor can no longer revert to an interglacial mode from orbital forcing as it did prior to 950 000 yr ago in order to reset an interglacial circulation mode of the conveyor ice sheets must continue to grow for 100 000 years until they capture enough excess volume to produce a gravitational collapse of marine based components so massive that all grounded ice is flushed from north atlantic continental shelves the outburst of icebergs produced by this collapse cripples the glacial mode of overturning in the northern north atlantic once this collapse ends however the nordic seas become nearly free of icebergs for the first time in 100 000 years because of the depletion of adjacent marine based components as a consequence north atlantic salinity increases rapidly switching the conveyor into a vigorous interglacial mode of operation and hence terminating the glacial cycle by lowering sea level the prolonged growth of northern hemisphere ice sheets during each 100 000 yr cycle drives antarctic grounding lines seaward across continental shelves squeezing off the source of densified shelf waters that feed aabw sea level rise and increased basal melting however caused by the subsequent collapse of northern ice sheets and the reintroduction of north atlantic deep water into the southern ocean reverses the process forcing retreat of antarctic grounding lines from their advanced last glacial maximum positions this retreat opens marginal seas for renewed formation of dense shelf water by expanding marginal seas and hence the source of dense shelf water ongoing recession of the wais strengthens aabw during the course of an interglaciation eventually forcing a thermohaline circulation switch in the nordic seas and initiating yet another 100 000 yr glacial cycle the 100 000 yr duration of each cycle is set by two factors inertia is built into the system by the long time required for ice sheets to grow to the excess volume necessary for a marine collapse that resets the salinity conveyor into an interglacial mode eccentricity driven changes in the amplitude of the precession or tropical half precession signal give rise to warming events that trigger such a collapse of excess ice about each 100 000 yr

global ice sheet system interlocked by sea level abstract denton and hughes 1983 quaternary research 20 125 144 postulated that sea level linked a global ice sheet system with both terrestrial and grounded marine components during late quaternary ice ages summer temperature changes near northern hemisphere melting margins initiated sea level fluctuations that controlled marine components in both polar hemispheres it was further proposed that variations of this ice sheet system amplified and transmitted milankovitch summer half year insolation changes between 45 and 75 n into global climatic changes new tests of this hypothesis implicate sea level as a major control of the areal extent of grounded portions of the antarctic ice sheet thus fitting the concept of a globally interlocked ice sheet system but recent atmospheric modeling results manabe and broccoli 1985 journal of geophysical research 90 2167 2190 suggest that factors other than areal changes of the grounded antarctic ice sheet strongly influenced southern hemisphere climate and terminated the last ice age simultaneously in both polar hemispheres atmospheric carbon dioxide linked to high latitude oceans is the most likely candidate shackleton and pisias 1985 atmospheric carbon dioxide orbital forcing and climate in the carbon cycle and atmospheric co2 natural variations archean to present e t sundquest and w s broecker eds pp 303 318 geophysical monograph 32 american geophysical union washington d c but another potential influence was high frequency climatic oscillations 2500 yr it is postulated that variations in atmospheric carbon dioxide acted through an antarctic ice shelf linked to the grounded ice sheet to produce and terminate southern hemisphere ice age climate it is further postulated that milankovitch summer insolation combined with a warm high frequency oscillation caused marked recession of northern hemisphere ice sheet melting margins and the north atlantic polar front about 14 000 14c yr b p this permitted renewed formation of north atlantic deep water which could well have controlled atmospheric carbon dioxide w s broecker d m peteet and d rind 1985 nature london 315 21 26 combined melting and consequent sea level rise from the three warming factors initiated irreversible collapse of the interlocked global ice sheet system which was at its largest but most vulnerable configuration

equilibrium line altitude variations with latitude today and during the late wisconsin abstract present day and late wisconsin glacier equilibrium line altitudes ela were compared on a transect from patagonia along the coastal cordillera to alaska and a transect from mexico along the sierra madre rocky mountains to alaska late wisconsin ela s were determined from cirques occupied during the late wisconsin and present day ela from observations of active cirque glaciers the mean change in ela from the late wisconsin to the present was 735 m with a standard deviation of 120 m this indicates that the change in snowline altitude from the present to the late wisconsin was approximately uniform and not latitudinally dependent

change in climate ocean and ice sheet conditions in the ross embayment antarctica at 6 ka evidence from the ross embayment antarctica suggests an abrupt cooling and a concomitant increase in sea ice cover at about 6000 sp 6 ka stable isotope delta d concentrations in the taylor dome ice core at the western edge of the ross embayment decline rapidly after 6 ka and continue to decline through the late holocene methanesulfonic acid concentrations at taylor dome show opposite trends to delta d sediment cores from the western ross sea show a percentage minimum for the sea ice diatom fragilariopsis curta between 9 and 6 ka when taylor dome delta d values are highest followed by an increase through the late holocene radiocarbon dates from raised beach deposits indicate that the retreat of ice shelves in the ross embayment ceased atabout 6 ka coincident with the environmental changes inferred from the sediment and ice core records the similarity in timing suggests an important role for climate in controlling the evolution of ice shelf margins following the end of the last 9 glaciation

coquitlam drift a pre vashon fraser glacial formation in the fraser lowland british columbia coquitlam drift is formally defined and stratotypes established for it in the coquitlam port moody area b c it is a pleistocene formation consisting of till glaciofluvial ice contact and glaciomarine sediments deposited between 21 700 and 18 700 years bp during the fraser glaciation late wisconsin and prior to the main vashon glacial maximum at about 14 500 years bp the drift was deposited in short pulses by valley and piedmont glaciers fluctuating into the fraser lowland from the coast mountains to the north and cascade mountains to the east

quaternary glaciations of new guinea abstract weathered glacial deposits outside limits of the last glaciation show that the new guinea mountains were covered by glacier systems before oxygen isotope stage 5 k ar dates from interbedded volcanic materials suggest that earlier glaciations may have occurred at ca 300 ka bp and at ca 700 ka bp this implies that the still tectonically active island was high enough in the early and mid quaternary to support mountain ice caps glacial deposits older than a radiocarbon age of 30 ka bp suggest that new guinea developed glaciers in the early part of the last glaciation most probably during isotope stage 4 following interstadial conditions radiocarbon dated to 31 ka bp and 41 ka bp the last glaciation is said to have culminated during the interval 18 15 ka bp but the moraines of this stage are not closely bracketed with radiocarbon dating estimates of equilibrium line altitude ela depression are 1000 1100 m implying a lowering of mean annual temperature by at least 6 7 c possibly more as precipitation also decreased radiocarbon dates from basal peat within the moraine limits show that glaciers receded by 13 ka bp and that new guinea may have been wholly ice free by 7 ka bp a small scale advance at 121 ka bp was a response to either increased precipitation as global sea level rose and covered dry shelf areas around new guinea or to late glacial global cooling glaciers developed again during an interval of neoglacial cooling beginning at ca 5 ka bp at least four significant readvances occurred during the last 3 5 ka radiocarbon dated to the intervals 3 5 2 9 ka bp 2 5 1 5 ka bp two advances and within the last 1 5 ka bp the little ice age ended ca 120 150 years ago and continuous glacier retreat has occurred to the present day

the role of ocean atmosphere reorganizations in glacial cycles abstract a case is made that glacial to interglacial transitions involve major reorganizations of the ocean atmosphere system such reorganizations constitute jumps between stable modes of operation which cause changes in the greenhouse gas content and albedo of the atmosphere only in this way can the rapidity of glacial terminations the hemispheric synchroneity and symmetry of mountain glaciation and the large polar air temperature and dustiness variations be accounted for if these reorganizations are driven in some fashion by orbitally induced seasonal insolation changes then the connection between insolation and climate is most likely through impacts of fresh water transport on the ocean s salinity distribution

deglacial warming of the northeastern atlantic ocean correlation with the paleoclimatic evolution of the european continent abstract isotopic micropaleontologic and pollen analyses of deep sea cores from the bay of biscay and the northeastern atlantic ocean show that the deglacial warming of this oceanic area was closely correlated with the paleoclimatic evolution of the adjacent european continent temperatures were at least as warm as those of today in the bay of biscay between 13 300 and 11 000 b p coinciding with the combined bolling allerod warm continental events a major spread of polar water occurred between 11 000 and 10 000 b p during this event which coincides with the younger dryas continental cold event marine temperatures were almost as low as those of the last glacial maximum the final deglacial warming of the norteastern atlatntic ocean occurred during the following 3000 yr

the evolution of the subglacial landscape of antarctica the aim is to investigate the evolution of the subglacial landscape of antarctica using an ice sheet and erosion model we identify different stages of continental glaciation and model the erosion processes associated with each stage the model links erosion to the basal thermal regime and indicates that much of the antarctic interior may have been subject to less than 200 m of erosion the depth of erosion reflects the presence or absence of warm based ice and the consistency of ice flow direction this information linked with knowledge about landscapes of glaciation in the northern hemisphere and some simple but robust assumptions about initial topography is used to generate a map of the subglacial antarctic landscape in which much of the lowland interior resembles the landscapes of areal scouring typical of the laurentian and scandinavian shields near the continental margins selective linear erosion has overdeepened pre existing river valleys by as much as 2 8 km high elevation plateaus adjacent to such drainage systems have survived largely unmodified under cold based ice high erosion rates result from steep thermal gradients in basal ice mountain regions such as the gamburtsev mountains uplands in dronning maud land and massifs in west antarctica are likely to bear features of local alpine glaciation such landscapes may have been protected under cold based ice for the last 34 myrs or possibly longer

marine episodes in hudson strait and hudson bay canada during the wisconsin glaciation abstract twelve reworked shell fragments were recovered from five till samples collected on nottingham island in western hudson strait canada total hydrolysate amino acid ratios d alloisoleucine l isoleucine for each fragment range from 0 043 to 0 154 and are significantly higher than ratios for radiocarbon dated holocene shells which average 0 022 one shell fragment with an aile ile ratio of 0 065 yielded an ams radiocarbon age of 44 200 2300 yr b p aa 3254 absolute age estimates based on the amino acid ratios are constrained by reasonable limits on the estimated effective diagenetic temperature of the fossils on this basis the shell fragments are correlated with oxygen isotope substages 5e and 5a and stage 3 in the preferred hypothesis theses results independently support hypotheses calling for at least partial deglaciation and marine incursion in hudson strait and hudson bay at these times

application of tandem accelerator mass spectrometer dating to late pleistocene holocene sediments of the east antarctic continental shelf abstract glacial recession from the antarctic continental shelf is recorded by glacial marine diamictons sands and overlying siliceous oozes in order to clarify the chronology for this sequence use was made of the university of arizona tandem accelerator mass spectrometer tams for 14 c dating small samples of benthic and planktonic foraminifera were selectively removed from diamictons graded sands and surface sediments which were recovered from the wilkes land continental shelf and slope east antarctica organic carbon was also utilized as a source for tams dating of the siliceous oozes and muds uncorrected ages varied from 14 260 140 to 3230 200 yr b p carbon fixed by phytoplankton and foraminifera is strongly influenced by old glacial derived co 2 thus reservoir corrections of up to 5500 yr are needed for the 14 c dates iceberg turbation reworks foraminifera so that dates from resulting deposits diamictons are interpreted as maximum ages the consistency of corrected ages from the shelf along with the sedimentologic interpretation suggests a rather recent recession perhaps mid holocene for this portion of the east antarctic ice sheet further application of the tams method should help clarify other problems concerning the late quaternary glacial history of antarctica

late quaternary iceberg rafted detritus events on the denmark strait southeast greenland continental slope 65 n related to north atlantic heinrich events hu93030 007 lcf 65o01 39 0 n and 30o14 81 0 w is a 4 5 m long giant 11 cm diameter piston core from 1800 m water depth on the continental slope south of the denmark strait sill the core sampled acoustically stratified sediments at a site below the kangerlussuaq trough nine ams 14 c dates on planktic foraminifera indicate that the core spans 14 to 28 14 c ka the sediments consists of two principal lithofacies lithofacies i li comprises tan ochre intervals with abundant ice rafted sandstone siltstone clasts larger than 2 mm and with an average thickness of 47 cm it is also associated with peaks in carbonate content and toc lithofacies ii lii consists of fine grained dark gray hemipelagic sediment there are three distinct intervals of li dated between 14 3 and 15 5 lic 20 1 and 21 9 lib 24 7 and 25 8 lia ka the ages suggest that deposition of li is approximately coeval with heinrich events 1 and 2 in the north atlantic whereas lia appears younger than h 3 lithofacies i is derived from far travelled ice bergs from an unknown source but not from the northeastern laurentide ice sheet stable isotope studies on neogloboquadrina pachydermasinistral show little evidence for significant meltwater events associated with li but surprisingly light oxygen isotopic events are present in the benthic foraminiferal analyses cibicidoides wuellerstorfiand melonis zaandamae the ages of the hu93030 007 iceberg rafted detritus ird events are similar to ird peaks in cores north of denmark strait on the east greenland slope hu87033 009 lcf se baffin slope 62o30 99 0 n and 59o26 82 0 w 1437 m wd is situated in a similar position to hu93030 007 but with respect to the laurentide ice sheet its d 18 o record on planktic foraminifera is virtually identical to that of hu93030 007 the timing of ird events is similar in both these cores between 14 and 30 ka h 3 may be present in hu87033 009 as an ird event but in contrast to h 1 and h 2 it is not evident as a discernible detrital carbonate event 1998 elsevier science b v all rights reserved

on the reconstruction of pleistocene ice sheets a review abstract pleistocene ice sheets can be reconstructed through three separate approaches 1 evidence based on glacial geological studies such as erratic trains till composition crossing striations and exposures of multiple tills nonglacial sediments 2 reconstructions based on glaciological theory and observations these can be either two or three dimensional models they can be constrained by known ice margins at specific times or they can be open ended with the history of growth and retreat controlled by parameters resting entirely within the model 3 glacial isostatic rebound after deglaciation provides a measure of the distribution of mass ice across a region a best fit ice sheet model can be developed that closely approximates a series of relative sea level curves within an area of a former ice sheet in addition the model should also provide a reasonable sea level fit to relative sea level curves at sites well removed from glaciation this paper reviews some of the results of a variety of ice sheet reconstructions and concentrates on the various attempts to reconstruct the ice sheets of the last wisconsin weischelian wurm devensian glaciation evidence from glacial geology suggests flow patterns at variance with simple single domed ice sheets over north america and europe in addition reconstruction of ice sheets from glacial isostatic sea level data suggests that the ice sheets were significantly thinner than estimates based on 18 ka equilibrium ice sheets cf denton and hughes 1981 the review indicates it is important to differentiate between ice divides which control the directions of glacial flow and areas of maximum ice thickness which control the glacial isostatic rebound of the crust upon deglaciation recent studies from the laurentide ice sheet region indicate that the center of mass was not over hudson bay that a major ice divide lay east of hudson bay so that flow across the hudson bay and james bay lowlands was from the northeast that hudson bay was probably open to marine invasions two or three times during the wisconsin glaciation and that the laurentide ice sheet was thinner than an equilibrium reconstruction would suggest

pleistocene variability of antarctic ice sheet extent in the ross embayment cores acquired by the andrill mcmurdo ice shelf project and 1b provide the basis for a new sedimentation model for glacimarine depositional sequences that reflect cyclic glacial interglacial fluctuations of a marine based ice sheet in the western ross embayment over the past 2 0 ma notwithstanding periodic erosion during advances of the ice sheet uncertainties inherent to the sedimentological interpretation and a limited number of chronological datums it is clear that subglacial to grounding zone sedimentation was dominant at the and 1b site during the late pleistocene with interglacials being represented only by thin intervals of ice shelf sediment each sequence is characterised by subglacial massive diamictite that pass upwards into glacimarine diamictites and mudstones this provides the first direct evidence that the marine based antarctic ice sheet has oscillated between a grounded and floating state at least 7 times in the ross embayment over the last 780ka implying a milankovitch orbital influence an unconformity in and 1b that spans most 200 kyr of the mid pleistocene transition is inferred to represent widespread expansion of a marine based ice sheet in the ross embayment at 0 8 ma prior to 1 0 ma interglacial periods are characterised by open water conditions at the drill site with high abundances of volcanoclastic deposits and occasional diatomaceous sediments these may have responded to precession 20 kyr or obliquity 40 kyr orbital control the occurrence of 6 7 m of phonolitic glass reworked from mt erebus in interglacial deposits beneath last glacial maximum till requires open ocean or ice shelf conditions in the western ross sea around the drill site within the past 250 ka and implies a ross ice shelf similar to or less extensive than today during marine isotope stage 7 or 5

holocene development of the belize barrier reef previously knowledge of the holocene development of the belize barrier reef bbr the largest reef system in the atlantic ocean was limited to one location carrie bow cay we present new data from 11 rotary drill cores taken at 9 locations and 36 radiometric ages that indicate that the bbr was established from 8 26 to 6 68 ky bp on pleistocene reef limestones presumably deposited during oxygen isotope stage 5 the nonsynchronous start of holocene reef growth was a consequence of variation in elevation of antecedent topography largely controlled by underlying nne trending structures from north to south pleistocene elevation decreases along these structural trends probably reflecting differential subsidence and variations in karst topography reef anatomy is characterized by three facies in order of decreasing abundance these facies are represented by corals mainly acropora palmata and members of the montastraea annularis group by unconsolidated sand and rubble and by well cemented coral grainstones rudstones holocene reef accumulation rates average 3 25 m ky the degree of reef consolidation is negatively correlated with holocene thicknesses indicating that slowly growing reefs are better cemented than fast growing ones we present a holocene sea level curve for belize based on 36 dates from this study and 33 dates from our previous studies in the area

milankovitch theory of ice ages hypothesis of ice sheet linkage between regional insolation and global climate abstract j d hays j imbrie and n j shackleton 1976 science 194 1121 1132 showed that the astronomical theory explained many features of late quaternary ice age climates but they did not specify the physical mechanisms involved here it is proposed that interlocked variations of ice sheet heat sinks in both polar hemispheres amplified and transmitted milankovitch summer half year insolation changes a version of the astronomical theory between 45 and 75 n into the globally synchronous climate changes recorded in geologic records it is suggested that late quaternary ice sheets had terrestrial components grounded above sea level melting margins fluctuations controlled by climate and marine components grounded below sea level drained largely by ice streams limited melting margins fluctuations controlled primarily by sea level and secondarily by climate interior surface elevations coupled to downdraw through ice streams northern hemisphere ice sheets were largely marine with minor melting margins in the arctic and terrestrial with major melting margins in the midlatitudes west antarctic and peripheral east antarctic ice was marine based and lacked melting margins because of their geographic array these terrestrial and marine components formed an ice sheet system whose variations were coupled on a global scale milankovitch summer isolation changes near midlatitude northern hemisphere melting margins controlled most variations of this system because advance or retreat of melting margins initiated concurrent eustatic sea level change such sea level change afforded the critical interlocking mechanism between terrestrial and marine components because it forced simultaneous expansion or contraction of marine margins in both polar hemispheres this initiated an amplifying feedback loop among all marine components and influenced interior downdraw through ice streams arctic summer insolation change was less important because northern melting margins were relatively minor its greatest influence was on surface ablation of ice streams that controlled interior downdraw this affected eustatic sea level and activated global linkage of marine sectors by analogy with present day antarctica late quaternary ice sheets were enormous planetary heat sinks due to their reflective and radiative surface characteristics it is suggested that the effectiveness of these ice sheet heat sinks varied with their areal extent and interior surface elevation thus it is postulated that concurrent growth or decay of these interlocked ice sheet heat sinks in both polar hemispheres served as the global amplifier of regional milankovitch summer insolation

sedimentation beneath ice shelves the view from ice stream b abstract ice shelf development is favored by rapid flow of cold ice from outlet glaciers or ice streams into protected embayments with localized high spots basal melting of ice shelves is rapid near the ice front and may occur near the grounding line ice from outlet glaciers may contain significant englacial debris that is deposited as a dropstone diamicton in regions of basal melting englacial debris is sparse or absent in ice streams evidence from ice stream b draining into the ross ice shelf of west antarctica suggests that the rapid ice velocity arises from deformation of a several meter thick water saturated basal till layer that is eroding an unconformity on sediments beneath and that has deposited a till delta tens of meters thick and tens of kilometers long at the grounding line sea level fall would cause conveyor belt recycling of this till delta and grounding line advance across the ross sea to the edge of the continental shelf forming an ice sheet with a low ice stream profile resting on a several meter thick deforming till layer eroding an unconformity the modern ross sea is characterized by a regional unconformity overlain by a diamicton of probable latest pliocene pleistocene age measuring several meters to tens of meters thick we hypothesize that this diamicton is a deformed glacial till and that the ross sea sediments record one or more expansions of the till lubricated west antarctic ice sheet to the edge of the continental shelf

pleistocene glaciation in the southern lake district of chile relative age criteria permit deposits of successive andean glacier advances in the southern lake district of chile to be divided into four mappable drift sheets the oldest two of which overlie tertiary bedrock along the eastern flank of the cordillera de la costa only the youngest drift llanquihue is datable by radiocarbon during the most extensive ice advance of the last glaciation the lago llanquihue glacier was about 95 km long and reached an estimated maximum thickness of between 1000 and 1300 m glacier equilibrium lines at that time lay about 1000 m below their present level and rose eastward with a gradient of about 5 m km successive ice advances in the lago llanquihue basin which resulted in construction of end moraines and associated outwash plains beyond the lake margin culminated sometime before about 20 000 yr ago and between 20 000 and 19 000 yr ago a later readvance inferred from the sedimentary record of lake level fluctuations in the basin had begun by about 15 000 yr ago and culminated shortly after 13 000 yr ago a comparable but less closely dated record of ice advances is found northwest of seno reloncavi and on isla chiloe deglaciation following the latest advance is likely to have been rapid for the major glacier lobes fronted on deep water bodies that would have promoted extensive calving

late pleistocene ice age scenarios based on observational evidence ice age scenarios for the last glacial interglacial cycle based on observations of boyle and keigwin concerning the north atlantic thermohaline circulation and of barnola et al concerning atmospheric co sub 2 variations derived from the vostok ice cores are herein analyzed northern hemisphere continental ice sheets are simulated with an energy balance model ebm that is asynchronously coupled to vertically integrated ice sheets models based on the glen flow law the ebm includes both a realistic land sea distribution and temperature albedo feedback and is driven with orbital variations of effective solar insolation with the addition of atmospheric co sub 2 and ocean heat flux variations but not in their absence a complete collapse is obtained for the eurasian ice sheet but not for the north american ice sheet we therefore suggest that further feedback mechanisms perhaps involving more accurate modeling of the dynamics of the mostly marine based laurentide complex appears necessary to explain termination i 96 refs 12 figs 2 tabs

the calcite lysocline as a constraint on glacial interglacial low latitude production changes we investigate the response of the calcite lysocline to changes in the export production of the low latitude surface ocean the combined equatorial tropical and subtropical regions we employ different caco3 throughput schemes in a time dependent ocean carbon cycle model to separate the caco3 production lysocline balance from the other components of the model response and to estimate the effect of dissolution driven by organic matter decomposition in surface sediments with this model we carry out three experiments based on previous hypotheses for the cause of glacial interglacial atmospheric co2 variations 1 a simple increase in low latitude production 2 a decrease in its caco3 organic carbon rain ratio and 3 an increase in the depth of organic carbon regeneration none of these changes when taken alone can lower atmospheric co2 to glacial levels without violating observations of the glacial lysocline depth if a low latitude production increase were accompanied by a decrease in the caco3 organic carbon rain ratio then these simultaneous changes could lower atmospheric co2 to observed glacial levels without causing a significant change in the ocean average depth of the lysocline however even with these simultaneous changes the required increase in production is 50 or more of the modern rate of production

reef drowning during the last deglaciation evidence for catastrophic sea level rise and ice sheet collapse elevations and ages of drowned acropora palmata reefs from the caribbean atlantic region document three catastrophic metre scale sea level rise events during the last deglaciation these catastrophic rises were synchronous with 1 collapse of the laurentide and antarctic ice sheets 2 dramatic reorganization of ocean atmosphere circulation and 3 releases of huge volumes of subglacial and proglacial meltwater this correlation suggests that release of stored meltwater periodically destabilized ice sheets causing them to collapse and send huge fleets of icebergs into the atlantic massive inputs of ice not only produced catastrophic sea level rise drowning reefs and destabilizing other ice sheets but also rapidly reduced the elevation of the laurentide ice sheet flipping atmospheric circulation patterns and forcing warm equatorial waters into the frigid north atlantic such dramatic evidence of catastrophic climate and sea level change during deglaciation has potentially disastrous implications for the future especially as the stability of remaining ice sheets such as in west antarctica is in question

jakobshavns glacier drainage basin a balance assessment maximum and minimum estimates are made of the drainage basin feeding the jakobshavns glacier by using surface elevation maps derived from seasat altimetry benson s 1962 net balance measurements are used to calculate the balance flow within the basin comparisons of the balance flux at the terminus with estimates of actual flux suggest the basin is in overall equilibrium or slightly thickening this agrees with measurements along the nearby egig traverse balance velocities accelerate rapidly within 100 km of the coast farther upstream balance velocities are consistent with both measured velocities along the egig traverse and calculated deformation velocities it is estimated that jakobshavns glacier discharges between 4 8 and 7 6 of the annual net balance over greenland and drains between 3 7 and 5 8 of the ice sheet area

weichselian till stratigraphy and glacial history of finnmarksvidda north norway abstract during the last decade the geological survey of norway has performed surficial and stratigraphical mapping of the quaternary geology in finnmark north norway this mapping has revealed a complex late pleistocene stratigraphy with tills and intercalated gravels and sands which indicate at least three stadials and two interstadials during the weichselian older glacial events are also recognized true in situ organic material from an old ice free period was first found in this area during the 1988 field season preliminary pollen counts of this material indicate interglacial conditions of probable eemian age based on all the available stratigraphic data a model for the late pleistocene glacial history has been developed the locations of the ice accumulation zones during the three recognized stadials were different the first stadial had ice domes in both the mountains and the lower inland area the second stadial was mainly a mountain ice dome glaciation whereas the last stadial or glaciation had mainly inland ice domes the glacial record for northern fennoscandia indicates that glacial expansion during the early and middle weichselian did not reach a size comparable to that of the weichselian maximum ca 20 ka bp

late cenozoic glacial history of the ross embayment antarctica abstract the ross ice drainage system comprises about 25 per cent of the surface area of the antarctic ice sheet its fluctuations during the late quaternary have been determined in two ways from analyses of three deep ice cores extracted at byrd west antarctica and at vostok and dome circe east antarctica and from the distribution stratigraphy and chronology of glacial drifts in the transantarctic mountains the ice core studies give time series records for the last 160 ka that correspond well with the marine isotope record and clearly show glacial interglacial stadial and interstadial intervals they also suggest that during glaciation maxima the polar plateau was characterised by an accumulation rate 50 per cent lower and temperature 7 9 c lower than present values glacial geological studies reveal a hiatus in the drift record between older miocene early pleistocene glacial sediments and drifts of the last two glaciations isotope stages 6 and 2 there are two leading but contradictory interpretations of the older drift sirius formation one is based primarily on biological data and favours partial deglaciation of antarctica in the pliocene early pleistocene followed by regrowth of the east antarctic ice sheet to dimensions larger than now and then substantial uplift of the transantarctic mountains the other is founded on glacial geological observations and implies a larger than present ice sheet over antarctica during the miocene and only 200 m of uplift subsequently for the late quaternary reconstructed ice surface profiles based on detailed mapping and dating of drift sheets show that large outlet glaciers from the east antarctic polar plateau became about 1000 m thicker during glaciation maxima while the plateau ice barely thickened at all this is attributed to extensive northward migration of the ice grounding line in the ross embayment as global sea level fell dates obtained from the drift sheets confirm that glaciers in the ross embayment area reached maximal limits at 190 160 ka bp and at 23 14 ka bp recession from the last glaciation maximum was underway by 13 ka bp and was complete by ca 6 ka bp alpine glaciers terminating in dry valleys fluctuate asynchronously with the ross embayment glaciers they retreat during glacial maxima when they become starved of accumulation and readvance during warmer intervals because of their dependence on grounding line position glacier fluctuations in much of antarctica are primarily led by sea level changes controlled by ice sheets in the northern hemisphere

structure and timing of the last deglaciation oxygen isotope evidence foraminiferal oxygen isotope data from 24 tropical atlantic sediment cores constrained by 77 14c dates are stacked to form a composite record of isotopic termination 1 this record indicates that most of the isotopic transition at the end of the last ice age occurred between 14 ka bp and 6 ka bp minor isotopic expression of deglaciation is permitted as early as 16 ka bp but the most rapid rate of change occurred between 14 ka bp and 12 ka bp three steps of maximum change are present although they are close to the statistical limits of detection in the composite record the clear presence of the steps in individual records suggests that they are real we estimate their timing at 14 12 ka bp termination 1 a 10 9 ka bp termination 1 b and 8 6 ka bp termination 1 c centering of the termination near 11 ka bp is consistent with the milankovitch hypothesis that high summer insolation caused deglaciation in detail however maximum rates of change prior to the 11 ka bp insolation extreme and the inferred steps require additional mechanisms controlling the tempo of glacial interglacial climate change steps equivalent to those in 18o have not been detected in ice margin retreat data steps in the isotopic transition if real may record thinning of the ice sheets not accompanied by loss of area alternation between near equilibrium and near stagnant ice sheet profiles during deglaciation is hypothesized perhaps due to calving and unstable down draw of the ice sheets followed by partial re equilibration significant problems remain the effects of temperature on the isotope record are only partially constrained presently available data allow only semi quantitative intercalibration of ice volume sea level and isotopic estimates of glaciation

changes in west antarctic ice stream velocities observation and analysis 1 we have produced a map of velocity covering much of the siple coast ice streams the map confirms earlier estimates of deceleration on whillans ice stream comparison with bed elevation data indicates that subglacial topography and the location of consolidated sediment play a strong role in determining the location of the tributaries feeding the ice streams force balance estimates based on these data indicate that the tributaries have beds nearly an order of magnitude stronger than those beneath many of the ice streams we have used a theoretical analysis to examine the controls on fast flow this analysis suggests that ice plains very wide ice streams are inherently unstable this instability may be responsible for the current deceleration on the ice plain of whillans ice stream and the shutdown of ice stream c 150 years ago thinning induced reductions in driving stress may also explain some of the observed deceleration particularly in upstream areas the active portions of ice stream c coincide well with the areas where we estimate that melt should be taking place current topography and inferences of large thickening following a shutdown suggest the upstream migration of a stagnation front that initiated at the ice plain uncertainty remains about the basal conditions on ice stream d while the basal resistance on ice stream e is large enough to ensure basal melting

evolution of a coupled marine ice sheet sea level model we investigate the stability of marine ice sheets by coupling a gravitationally self consistent sea level model valid for a self gravitating viscoelastically deforming earth to a 1 d marine ice sheet shelf model the evolution of the coupled model is explored for a suite of simulations in which we vary the bed slope and the forcing that initiates retreat we find that the sea level fall at the grounding line associated with a retreating ice sheet acts to slow the retreat in simulations with shallow reversed bed slopes and or small external forcing the drop in sea level can be sufficient to halt the retreat the rate of sea level change at the grounding line has an elastic component due to ongoing changes in ice sheet geometry and a viscous component due to past ice and ocean load changes when the ice sheet model is forced from steady state on short timescales 500 years viscous effects may be ignored and grounding line migration at a given time will depend on the local bedrock topography and on contemporaneous sea level changes driven by ongoing ice sheet mass flux on longer timescales an accurate assessment of the present stability of a marine ice sheet requires knowledge of its past evolution

cosmogenic nuclide chronology of pre last glacial maximum moraines at lago buenos aires 46 s argentina at lago buenos aires argentina 10 be 26 al and 40 ar 39 ar ages range from 190 000 to 109 000 yr for two moraines deposited prior to the last glaciation 23 000 16 000 yr ago two approaches maximum boulder ages assuming no erosion and the average age of all boulders and an erosion rate of 1 4 mm 10 3 yr both yield a common estimate age of 150 000 140 000 yr for the two moraines the erosion rate estimate derives from 10 be and 26 al concentrations in old erratics deposited on moraines that are n760 000 yr old on the basis of interbedded 40 ar 39 ar dated lavas the new cosmogenic ages indicate that a major glaciation during marine oxygen isotope stage 6 occurred in the mid latitude andes the next five youngest moraines correspond to stage 2 there is no preserved record of a glacial advance during stage 4 the distribution of dated boulders and their ages suggest that at least one major glaciation occurred between 760 000 and n200 000 yr ago the mid latitude patagonian glacial record which is well preserved because of low erosion rates indicates that during the last two glacial cycles major glaciations in the southern andes have been in phase with growth and decay of northern hemisphere ice sheets especially at the 100 000 yr periodicity thus glacial maxima are global in nature and are ultimately paced by small changes in northern hemisphere insolation d 2005 university of washington all rights reserved

millennial scale instability of the antarctic ice sheet during the last glaciation records of ice rafted detritus ird concentration in deep sea cores from the southeast atlantic ocean reveal millennial scale pulses of ird delivery between 20 000 and 74 000 years ago prominent ird layers correlate across the polar frontal zone suggesting episodes of antarctic ice sheet instability carbon isotopes 13 c of benthic foraminifers a proxy of deepwater circulation reveal that south atlantic ird events coincided with strong increases in north atlantic deep water nadw production and inferred warming interstadials in the high latitude north atlantic sea level rise or increased nadw production associated with strong interstadials may have resulted in destabilization of grounded ice shelves and possible surging in the weddell sea region of west antarctica

retreat of the east antarctic ice sheet during the last glacial termination the east antarctic ice sheet retreated at the end of the last glacial period terrestrial and marine data suggest that the retreat began 14 000 years ago indicating that the east antarctic ice sheet probably did not contribute to meltwater pulse 1a 14 700 years ago

stratigraphy of the sixteen mile creek lagoon and its implications for lake ontario water levels the sequence of units from the base up in the sixteen mile creek lagoon lake ontario mimics the longitudinal sequence of surficial environments pink silt overbank flood plain dry marsh bottom sand stream channel and beach orange silt marsh gyttja wet marsh and very shallow deltaic lagoon and brown and grey clay open water lagoon this entire sequence accumulated over the last 4200 years under slowly deepening transgressive conditions caused by the isostatic rise of the lake outlet land clearing by european settlers dramatically increased the supply of clastic sediment and terminated the deposition of the organic rich silty clays gyttja that make up most of the lagoon fill because the gyttja and beach sand are interpreted to have accumulated in water depths of less than 0 5 m the elevation time plot of 14c dates from these units can be used to reconstruct a very closely constrained lake level curve the data indicate that water levels have risen at an average rate of 0 25 cm a over the

a model study of the role of high latitude topography in the climatic response to orbital insolation anomalies abstract the response of a combined global zonal averaged energy balance model and a continental ice sheet model to insulation anomalies produced by orbital perturbations is examined although the role of ice sheet dynamics is included in the model this paper focuses mostly on the response of the atmosphere hydrosphere to the perturbations the model developed from that of suarez and held 1979 explicitly incorporates surface topography surface energy balances snow and sea ice budgets and variable static stability the ice sheet model is based on a power law rheology it is found that the presence of a high latitude plateau significantly increases the sensitivity of the climate to the insolation perturbation the sensitivity is maximized when the elevation of the summer snowline is near the elevation of the plateau as appears to be the case with baffin island today there appears to be a rapid response of the seasonal cycle to an insolation anomaly through albedo temperature feedback and with the

holocene glacier fluctuations in the american cordillera abstract in many areas of the american rocky mountains colorado wyoming utah idaho montana cascade range washington oregon and the sierra nevada california radiocarbon ages suggest that ice receded to near present limits before 10 ka bp a pre altithermal readvance or stillstand left moraines ca 1 3 km beyond and ca 50 300 m below present glacier margins at one locality on glacier peak in washington these deposits are perhaps dated to the early holocene but in general these deposits are probably at least 10 ka old glacial advances during the altithermal ca 8 to 5 ka bp elsewhere are rare radiocarbon evidence for altithermal glacial advances in the colorado front range is questionable the earliest radiocarbon dated neoglacial advances occurred about 5 ka bp in the washington cascades moraines and related deposits believed to be of early neoglacial age i e 5 to 3 ka bp elsewhere are poorly dated for example moraines believed to date to the early neoglacial in colorado triple lakes and wyoming temple lake are actually late pleistocene age based on radiocarbon ages derived from lake sediments at the type localities although relative age data i e lichens rock weathering soils from many areas suggest a three fold neoglacial sequence little supporting radiocarbon evidence is available however tephrochronology distinguishes three neoglacial advances near mount rainier in washington in most mountain ranges of the western united states fresh unweathered sharp crested moraines usually adjacent to present ice margins or near headwalls in empty cirques date to the little ice age of the last several centuries however detailed photographic or other historical records of glacial fluctuations during the last century are rare and detailed mass balance studies rarer still whether or not pre little ice age glacial fluctuations in the american cordillera are synchronous must await better radiometric dating of local moraine sequences

comparison of ice rafted debris and physical properties in odp site 1094 south atlantic with the vostok ice core over the last four climatic cycles abstract visual counts of ice rafted debris ird foraminifera and radiolaria were made for 1500 samples in site 1094 spanning the last four climatic cycles marine isotope stages 1 11 most but not all of the ird variability is captured by whole core physical properties including magnetic susceptibility and ray attenuation bulk density glacial periods are marked by high ird abundance and millennial scale variability which may reflect instability of ice shelves in the weddell sea region each interglacial period exhibits low ird and high foraminiferal abundance during the early part of the interglacial indicating relatively warm sea surface temperatures and reduced influence of sea ice ird increases and foraminiferal abundances decrease during the latter part of each interglacial indicating a return to more glacial like conditions glacial terminations i and v are each characterized by a step wise reduction in ice rafting punctuated by a brief pulse in ird delivery and reversal in 18o the coarse fraction of the sediment is dominated by ash and radiolaria and the relative abundance of these components is remarkably similar to the concentration of na in vostok each of these variables is believed to be controlled mainly by sea ice cover thereby providing a means for sediment ice core correlation

origin of the middle pleistocene transition by ice sheet erosion of regolith the transition in the middle pleistocene 0 9 ma seen in 18o deep sea core records from relatively low amplitude high frequency 41 kyr to high amplitude low frequency 100 kyr ice volume variations under essentially the same orbital forcing can be attributed to a change from an all soft bedded to a mixed hard soft bedded laurentide ice sheet through glacial erosion of a thick regolith and resulting exposure of unweathered crystalline bedrock a one dimensional ice sheet and bedrock model which includes transport of sediment and ice by subglacial sediment deformation demonstrates that a widespread deforming sediment layer maintains thin ice sheets before the transition which respond linearly to the dominant 23 and 41 kyr orbital forcing progressive removal of the sediment layer eventually causes a transition to thicker ice sheets whose dominant timescale of change 100 kyr reflects nonlinear deglaciation processes in model simulations over the last 3 ma initialized with no ice and a uniform 50 m sediment layer the time series of ice volume and extent agree in several important aspects with the observed records

the role of ocean atmosphere reorganizations in glacial cycles abstract a case is made that glacial to interglacial transitions involve major reorganizations of the ocean atmosphere system such reorganizations constitute jumps between stable modes of operation which cause changes in the greenhouse gas content and albedo of the atmosphere only in this way can the rapidity of glacial terminations the hemispheric synchroneity and symmetry of mountain glaciation and the large polar air temperature and dustiness variations be accounted for if these reorganizations are driven in some fashion by orbitally induced seasonal insolation changes then the connection between insolation and climate is most likely through impacts of fresh water transport on the ocean s salinity distribution

a paleoclimate model of northern hemisphere ice sheets abstract a model for predicting the growth and decay of ice sheets based on the astronomical theory of climate change is presented the purpose of the study in part is to isolate the role of the ice sheet physics and earth response under varying ice load by simplifying to the extreme the role of the hydrosphere atmosphere ice sheet physics and the response of the lithosphere asthenosphere under the ice load are modeled explicitly insolation anomalies taken at a fixed latitude directly force latitudinal displacement of the snow line accumulation rate a and ablation rate a evaluated at mean sea level are specificed as external constants a a decrease linearly with ice sheet elevation rough tuning of the model to the general shape of the ice volume record of the last two major glacials determines the external constants model predictions of the ages of several events in the last major glaciation compare well with the radiological ages the six glacial terminatios i vi over the last 600 000 yr are identified and the predicted ages compare reasonably well with the 18 o record for two deep sea cores a direct comparison of model power spectra of ice volume as a function of period with spectra of the 18 o record shows apparent underprediction of power near 100 000 yr when a quantitative but heuristic method for taking into account the red noise spectrum evident in the geological records is used a much more favorable comparison is possible the model prediction lends support to the hypothesis that the nonlinearity of the ice sheet physics is responsible for the 100 000 yr periodicity in the geological record of the late pleistocene

glacial eustasy during the cenozoic sequence stratigraphic implications a newly constructed composite oxygen isotope record is a proxy for eustasy that extends back to the cretaceous tertiary boundary and provides an independent test of sequence stratigraphic based eustatic curves the isotope record shows several eustatic episodes that are consistent with the geological record of ice sheet evolution the first evidence for the existence of an ice sheet in east antarctica occurs near the lower middle eocene boundary base of the lutetian stage there is no evidence for a large ice sheet on antarctica prior to this time however strata of this age are lacking over most of the continent the isotope curve also indicates that the ice sheet experienced phases of growth during the late eocene and middle oligocene followed by a decrease in volume in the early miocene the ross sea stratigraphic record indicates initial evolution of the west antarctica ice sheet during the early miocene by the middle miocene the ice sheet spread across the ross sea weddell sea and antarctic peninsula continental shelves the pliocene pleistocene record of glaciation in antarctica includes numerous glacial erosion surfaces on the continental shelf indicating repeated advance and retreat of both east and west antarctica ice sheets these volume changes in the antarctica ice sheet were in response to the rise and fall of sea level caused by expanding and contracting northern hemisphere ice sheets there is a reasonable correlation between eustatic curves derived from sequence stratigraphic studies and the composite oxygen isotope record since the middle eocene this correlation indicates that glacial eustasy has been the principal factor regulating stratal stacking patterns on a global scale since the middle eocene

continental shelf record of the east antarctic ice sheet evolution seismo stratigraphic evidence from the george v basin abstract the late quaternary ice sheet ice shelf extent in the george v basin east antarctica has been reconstructed through analyses of chirp sub bottom profiles integrated with multi channel seismic data and sediment cores four glacial facies related to the advance and retreat history of the glaciated margin have been distinguished facies 1 represents outcrop of crystalline and sedimentary rocks along the steep inner shelf and comprises canyons once carved by glaciers facies 2 represents moraines and morainal banks and ridges with a depositional origin along the middle inner shelf facies 3 represents glacial flutes along the middle outer shelf facies 4 is related to ice keel turbation at water depths 775 m with drape sheet and mound characters and numerous undisturbed sub bottom sub parallel reflectors facies md1 b a fluted sediment drift deposit at water depth

bottom currents sedimentation and ice sheet retreat facies successions on the mac robertson shelf east antarctica abstract measurements of water turbidity currents seafloor sediment samples and geophysical data document the sedimentary processes and the late quaternary sedimentary history of a continental shelf valley system on the east antarctic continental margin the valley is up to 1200 m in depth and strikes across the shelf it is interpreted as having formed by glacial erosion processes on the outer shelf sill of the valley northwestward offshore currents with speeds of up to 0 47 m s referenced to 100 cm above the seabed were recorded over a 10 month period such currents are competent to initiate bedload transport of medium sand and formation of small ripple sized bedforms which explains the occurrence of ripple cross bedding observed in some x radiographs of cores a nepheloid layer with concentrations of up to 3 5 mg l was noted at two stations and the available evidence suggests that density flows resulting from the sea ice brine rejection mechanism are competent to entrain shelf bottom sediments episodically sediment cores taken from this environment document the succession of facies resulting from retreat of glacial ice from the shelf during the holocene transgression under low sea level glacial conditions the ice sheet is interpreted to have been grounded on the outer shelf where it deposited a grounding line moraine rising sea level and global warming caused the ice shelf to retreat leaving a sub ice shelf glacial marine mud this is overlain by a laminated to massively bedded ice rafted debris rich facies interpreted as being deposited at the glacial calving front above this is a siliceous mud and ooze facies having a basal age of about 10 000 years bp characterising modern open marine conditions two types of iceberg keel marks on the outer part of the shelf valley are recognised from sidescan sonographs one relict arcuate type formed during the retreat of the ice shelf prior to 10 000 years bp and a second modern elongate type that is presently being formed near the shelf break by iceberg grounding processes this facies succession has been described from other antarctic shelf environments and is probably representative of facies deposited during holocene glacial retreat from the antarctic shelf

sea level changes at the lgm from ice dynamic reconstructions of the greenland and antarctic ice sheets during the glacial cycles abstract new experiments were performed with three dimensional thermomechanical models of the greenland and antarctic ice sheets to simulate their behaviour during the glacial cycles to reconstruct their thickness and extent at the last glacial maximum lgm and to estimate their glacio eustatic contribution to the global sea level stand the calculations used improved ice dynamic and isostatic treatments updated datasets on higher grid resolutions and refined climatic treatments based on newly calibrated transfer functions between ice core records and climatic perturbations results are discussed from a reference run with standard parameters that is compared with available glacial geological observations and from a series of sensitivity experiments focusing on isostatic adjustment thermomechanical coupling climatic forcing mass balance changes and basal melting rates and viscosity changes of antarctic ice shelves for the antarctic ice sheet we find that volume changes are closely linked with grounding line changes of the west antarctic ice sheet at the lgm the grounding line extended close to the continental shelf break almost everywhere ice over central east antarctica was generally thinner than today and varied mainly in accordance with accumulation fluctuations for the greenland ice sheet melting is important only during interglacial periods and the most sensitive period concerns the size of the ice sheet during the eemian at the lgm the greenland ice sheet extended beyond the present coastline to cover at least the inner continental shelf and thinned by up to several hundred meters in central areas for a plausible range of parameters the experiments indicate that at the time of maximum sea level depression 21 kyr bp the antarctic ice sheet contributed 14 18 m to the sea level lowering and the greenland ice sheet 2 3 m significantly less than the older climap reconstructions whereas both ice sheets were at 21 kyr bp close to their maximum extent the experiments also indicate that their maximum volumes were reached only by 16 5 kyr bp greenland and 10 kyr bp antarctica equal to an additional sea level lowering of respectively 0 4 and 3 7 m holocene retreat was essentially complete by 5 kyr bp in greenland but is found to still continue today in west antarctica before reversing to growth during the next millenium the models were found to reproduce gross features of the ice sheet s history since the lgm in reasonably good agreement with available glacial geological data although observational control on ice thickness changes remains very limited

abrupt changes heinrich events in late quaternary north atlantic marine environments a history and review of data and concepts in the last several years evidence has mounted that a series of abrupt changes in sediment delivery and palaeoceanography effected the north atlantic they are recorded in a variety of proxy records but most dramatically in changes of grain size and mineralogy associated with postulated iceberg rafting events specifically heinrich h events this review paper examines the evidence for such evidence prior to the development of the heinrich event concept 1988 1992 and then examines the explosion of data and correlations that stemmed from the acceptance and use of this paradigm specific attention is focused on ideas pertaining to the cause s of glaciological mechanisms sediment delivery and sediment source and major gaps in our understanding of the underlying glaciological glacial geological and glacial marine processes are stressed abrupt changes across boundaries associated with h 2 in the labrador sea are illustrated from core hu87033 009lcf the case is made that correlations between records need to be more rigorous especially within the range of radiocarbon dating but it appears that abrupt changes in the delivery of iceberg rafted debris which characterize these intervals are multisourced it is unclear how global climate can simultaneously influence the abrupt behaviour of ice margins in different parts of the world for marine based margins changes in relative sea level are one possibility a qualitative model is presented for triggering h events which includes global changes in mass balance changes in relative sea level at ice margins due to glacial isostasy and changes in the basal thermal regime of tidewater ice streams 1998 john wiley sons ltd

tidal flexure of jakobshavns glacier west greenland jakobshavns glacier a floating outlet glacier on the west greenland coast was surveyed during july 1976 the vertical displacements of targets along two profiles perpendicular to the fjord wall bounding the north margin of the glacier were analyzed to determine the effect of flexure caused by tidal oscillations within the fjord an analysis based on the assumption that vertical displacements of the glacier reflected pure elastic bending yielded the conclusion that the effective thickness of the ice i e the thickness which remained unaffected by surface and basal cracking and which behaved as a continuum was 160 m 2 6 km upglacier from the calving front and 110 m 0 6 km from the calving front an analysis based on the more realistic assumption that observed bending reflected elastic and viscoplastic deformation yielded the conclusion that the average effective thickness of the ice was 316 74 m 40 of the estimated 800 m total thickness 2 6 km from the calving front and 160 48 m 21 of the estimated 750 m total 0 6 km from the calving front a constitutive relationship appropriate for hard glide during flexure was used

the jakobshanvs effect the jakobshavns effect may have been a significant factor in hastening the collapse of palaeo ice sheets with the advent of climatic warming after 18 000 years ago and may precipitate partial collapse of the present day greenland and antarctic ice sheets following co2 induced climatic warming in the decades ahead the jakobshavns effect is observed today on jakobshavns glacier which is located at 69 10 n on the west coast of greenland the jakobshavns effect is a group of positive feedback mechanisms which allow jakobshavns glacier to literally pull ice out of the greenland ice sheet at a rate exceeding 7 km a across a floating terminus 800 m thick and 6 km wide the pulling power results from an imbalance of horizontal hydrostatic forces in ice and water columns at the grounding line of the floating terminus positive feedback mechanisms that sustain the rapid ice discharge rate are ubiquitous surface crevassing high summer rates of surface melting extending creep flow progressive basal uncoupling progressive lateral uncoupling and rapid iceberg calving

a numerical model of interactions between a polar ice stream and the ocean application to ice stream e west antarctica a time dependent numerical model has been developed to study the dynamics of a polar ice stream grounded below sea level the model was applied to ice stream e one of the two most active ice streams draining the ross sea sector of the west antarctic ice sheet the retarding force or back stress from the floating ross ice shelf needed to hold the model grounding line in dynamic equilibrium was found to compare closely with retarding force mapped from field data by earlier investigators this implies that the grounding line of ice stream e is in fact close to dynamic equilibrium neither advancing nor retreating rapidly if the ice stream and its catchment area are approximately in mass balance sensitivity tests showed that the model ice stream is more sensitive to changes in back stress from the ice shelf than to changes in the accumulation rate changes in back stress can be caused by changes in the average thickness of the ice shelf the model was used to simulate retreat of the ice stream from the edge of the continental shelf in the ross sea during the holocene period of rising sea level the sea floor was assumed to be isostatically depressed but to remain rigid during retreat the effect of the assumed retreat history of the ross ice shelf on the computed timing of grounding line retreat was investigated by considering several alternative ice shelf histories the results support the conclusion of earlier investigators that the ross ice shelf caused the grounding line to stop retreating near its present position after extensive retreat during the holocene in addition the timing of retreat of the calving front of the ross ice shelf exerted major influence on the timing of retreat of the ice stream grounding line

vostok ice core climatic response to co2 and orbital forcing changes over the last climatic cycle vostok climate and co2 records suggest that co2 changes have had an important climatic role during the late pleistocene in amplifying the relatively weak orbital forcing the existence of the 100 kyr cycle and the synchronism between northern and southern hemisphere climates may have their origin in the large glacial interglacial co2 changes

cenozoic glaciation in the southern hemisphere with the end of glaciation in gondwana in early permian time a prolonged interval began when the earth was without ice sheets though not necessarily free of mountain glaciers not until sometime during the tertiary era did ice sheets build up once more first in antarctica and later in the northern hemisphere the fundamental cause of the cooling that led to the formation of the antarctic ice sheet and eventually to major glaciation in lower latitudes is generally held to have been the increasing thermal isolation of antarctica as australia and later south america separated from it allowing zonal oceanic circulation to develop rifting between australia and antarctica began between 1 10 and 90 m y ago cande mutter 1982 but not until much later probably sometime between 30 and 25 m y ago had it progressed far enough for deep circulation to begin as the south tasman rise cleared north victoria land kennett et a1 1974 kennett 1977 weissel et ai 1977 however antarctica did not reach its present high level of thermal isolation until south america had separated from it enabling the antarctic circumpolar current to become established savin et ai 1975 according to barker burrell 1977 1982 coherent spreading between the antarctic peninsula and tierra del fuego started about 29 m y ago and deep circulation began 23 5 2 5 m y ago thereafter increasing in volume the initial ice fields and ice caps that later expanded to become the

numerical modelling of the ice sheet in western dronning maud land east antarctica impacts of present past and future climates time dependent ice sheet modelling of a 176 000 km2 area in western dronning maud land east antarctica provided information on the ice sheet s response to six climate change scenarios another experiment was done to study changes in ice thickness flow and basal temperature conditions between the present ice configuration and a simulated maximum palaeo ice sheet the input to the model included new datasets of bed and surface topography compiled for this study the results of the six climate change experiments including a 0 5 c per century global warming scenario show that the ice sheet has a robust behaviour with respect to the different climate changes the maximum change in ice volume was

millennial scale iceberg discharges in the irminger basin during the last glacial period relationship with the heinrich events and environmental settings high resolution records of coarse lithic content and oxygen isotope have been obtained in a piston core from the irminger basin the last glacial period is characterized by numerous periods of increased iceberg discharges originating partly from iceland and corresponding to millennial scale instabilities of the coastal ice sheets and ice shelves in the nordic area a comparison with midlatitude sediment cores shows that ice rafted material corresponding to the heinrich events was deposited synchronously from 40 to 60 n there are thus two oscillating systems every 5 10 kyr massive iceberg armadas are released from large continental ice caps whereas more frequent instabilities of the coastal ice sheets in the high latitude regions occur every 1 2 3 8 kyr at the time of the heinrich events the synchroneity of the response from all the northern hemisphere ice sheets attests the existence of strong interactions between the two systems

late quaternary record of sea level changes in the antarctic the late quaternary sediment sequence of the continental margin in the eastern weddell sea is well suited for palaeoenvironmental reconstructions twocores rom the upper slope which contain the sedimentary record of the last 300 ky have been sedimentologically investigated age models are based onlithostratigraphy and are correlated with the stable isotope record as a result of a detailed analysis of the clay mineral composition grain size distributionsand structures this sedimentary record provides the first marine evidence that the antarctic ice sheet extended to the shelf edge during the last glacial the variations in volume and size of the ice sheet were also simulated in numerical models changes in accumulation rate and ice temperature are of someimportance but the model revealed that fluctuations are primarily driven by changes in eustatic sea level and that the ice edge extended to the shelf edgeduring the last glacial maximum this causal relationship implies that the maximum ice extension strongly depends on the magnitude and duration of thesea level depression during a glacial period the results of sedimentological investigations and of the numerical models show that the antarctic ice sheetfollows glacial events in the northern hemisphere by teleconnections of sea level

sea level in time and space revolutions and inconvenient truths in this paper we identify four revolutions that in our view have shaped the study of sea level changes in recent decades i the search for eustasy one of the most hotly debated issues in the 1960s is still relevant as models of glacial isostatic adjustment gia require input of the amount of meltwater transferred to the world s oceans following the demise of the large pleistocene ice sheets ii resolution of sea level archives all sea level archives have limitations in their resolving power but are we willing to define these from studies of salt marsh deposits and corals it is highly likely that climate driven metre scale sea level fluctuations have not occurred during the middle and late holocene iii rapid sea level changes improved coring technology has resulted in the suggestion of meltwater pulses during the last deglaciation low frequency high magnitude events have been documented along seismically active shorelines and provide information on seismic hazards and storm impacts iv merging of empirical sea level investigations and models much sea level research in the past two decades has embraced the integration of models and field derived data providing testable hypotheses and insights into processes we conclude with some reminders about the inconvenient truths that keep the sea level scientist honest

a model of late pleistocene ice sheet growth with realistic geography and simplified cryodynamics and geodynamics a global two dimensional one level seasonal energy balance model is asynchronously coupled to vertically integrated ice flow models which depend both on latitude and longitude to study the response of the atmosphere ocean cryosphere lithosphere system to solar forcing for the last ice age cycle of the late pleistocene the model simulates the position of the north american and european ice sheet complexes at the last glacial maximum satisfactorily both the geographic distributions of the ice volumes delivered by the model and their masses are a reasonable approximation to those inferred on the basis of relative sea level data tushingham and peltier 1990 the sensitivity of the coupled model over the last glacial interglacial cycle to solar forcing is nevertheless low which suggests that further physical mechanisms will have to be added to the model such as explicit basal sliding and ice shelves which would respond to sea level variations and therefore permit marine incursions if it is to adequately simulate the terminations that control the 105 year ice age cycle one should also incorporate long term variations of the greenhouse gases manabe et al 1985b

the influence of continental ice sheets on the climate of an ice age the climate influence of the land ice that existed 18 000 years before present 18k b p is investigated by use of a general circulation model of the atmosphere coupled with a static mixed layer ocean simulated climates are obtained from two versions of the model one with the land ice distribution of the present and the other with that of 18k b p in the northern hemisphere the tropospheric flow field is strongly influenced by the laurentide ice sheet and features a split flow straddling the ice sheet with a strong jet stream forming the southern branch the northern branch of the flow brings very cold air over the north atlantic ocean where thick sea ice is maintained the distribution of sea surface temperature sst difference between the two experiments in the northern hemisphere resembles the difference between the sst at 18k b p and at present as estimated by the climap project 1981 the 18k b p ice sheets have very little influence upon atmospheric temperature and sst in the southern hemisphere this is because the interhemispheric heat transport hardly changes as the loss of heat energy due to the reflection of solar radiation by continental ice sheets in the northern hemisphere is almost completely counterbalanced by the in situ reduction of upward terrestrial radiation hydrologic changes in the model climate are also found with statistically significant decreases in soil moisture occurring in a zone located to the south of the ice sheets in north america and eurasia these findings are consistent with some geological evidence of regionally drier climates from the last glacial maximum

antarctic ice dynamics amplified by northern hemisphere sea level forcing sea level rise due to ice loss in the northern hemisphere in response to insolation and greenhouse gas forcing is thought to have caused grounding line retreat of marine based sectors of the antarctic ice sheet ais 1 3 such interhemispheric sea level forcing may explain the synchronous evolution of global ice sheets over ice age cycles recent studies that indicate that the ais experienced substantial millennial scale variability during and after the last deglaciation4 7 roughly 20 000 to 9 000 years ago provide further evidence of this sea level forcing however global sea level change as a result of mass loss from ice sheets is strongly nonuniform owing to gravitational deformational and earth rotational effects8 suggesting that the response of ais grounding lines to northern hemisphere sea level forcing is more complicated than previously modelled1 2 6 here using an ice sheet model coupled to a global sea level model we show that ais dynamics are amplified by northern hemisphere sea level forcing as a result of this interhemispheric interaction a large or rapid northern hemisphere sea level forcing enhances grounding line advance and associated mass gain of the ais during glaciation and grounding line retreat and mass loss during deglaciation relative to models without these interactions the inclusion of northern hemisphere sea level forcing in our model increases the volume of the ais during the last glacial maximum about 26 000 to 20 000 years ago triggers an earlier retreat of the grounding line and leads to millennial scale variability throughout the last deglaciation these findings are consistent with geologic reconstructions of the extent of the ais during the last glacial maximum and subsequent ice sheet retreat and with relative sea level change in antarctica3 7 9 10

meteorites as surface exposure time markers on the blue ice fields of antarctica episodic ice flow in victoria land over the last 300 000 years abstract meteorites have been discovered in large numbers on certain blue ice fields in the antarctic it is possible to estimate how long these meteorites have been on earth using cosmogenic radionuclide abundances and as discussed in this paper how long they have been exposed on the ice surface using natural thermoluminescence tl levels in this paper we discuss two methods to determine surface exposure ages for antarctic meteorite finds one method assumes an initial tl level and average surface exposure temperature while the other method uses multiple samples from a single meteorite and assumes a temperature gradient across the meteorite the former method does not work for approximately 15 of meteorites which were heated prior to earth impact these data suggest that no meteorite in the current study was exposed on the ice surface for more than 300 000 years which may imply that the blue ice fields in question were not stable platforms prior to this point in time or that a rapid pulse in ice thickness cleared the field of meteorites steps in surface exposure ages suggest that accumulation of meteorites on the ice fields has been episodic over the last 300 000 years although these episodes have been of lesser magnitude than that at about 300 000 years ago

late quaternary ice surface fluctuations of beardmore glacier transantarctic mountains abstract former longitudinal profiles of beardmore glacier an outlet through the transantarctic mountains constrain polar plateau elevations near the center of antarctica and ice shelf grouding in the southern ross embayment three gravel drift sheets of late quaternary age occur alongside beardmore glacier plunket drift the youngest is parallel to and 7 30 m above the present ice surface the upper limit of beardmore drift intermediate in age is within 35 40 m of the present ice surface near the polar plateau but about 1100 m above the present ice surface near the glacier mouth the upper limit of meyer drift the oldest is parallel to and 30 50 m above beardmore drift from correlation with numerically dated drifts farther north we assign an early holocene age to plunket drift a late wisconsin age to beardmore drift and an age of marine isotope stage 6 to meyer drift by our age model beardmore glacier was close to current elevations in its upper reaches and thickened considerably in its middle and lower reaches during the last two global glaciations represented by beardmore and meyer drifts most likely grounded ice in the southern ross embayment caused such thickening of beardmore glacier almost to the polar plateau a concomitant decline in precipitation is implied by ice cap retreat on the nearby dominion range and is consistent with little change of upper beardmore glacier ice shelf grounding most likely resulted from lowered sea level and or basal melting lower than present precipitation was probably caused by colder air temperatures and more distant open water the plunket profile records holocene ice surface lowering from increased surface ablation decreased ice flow or grounding line recession

near synchroneity of new zealand alpine glaciations and northern hemisphere continental glaciations during the past 750 kyr the brunhes magnetochron 0 730 kyr at deep sea drilling project site 594 off eastern south island new zealand comprises up to 100 m of alternating units of pelagic and hemipelagic ooze formed during interglacial and glacial periods respectively the youngest hemipelagic interval corresponds to glacial isotope stage 2 and can be correlated with extensive glacial and glacio fluvial deposits of the late last glaciation 27 13 kyr bp on south island inferring the same genetic link for the other hemipelagic sediment units down core we show here that as many as 12 major episodes of expanded alpine glaciation have occurred on south island in the past 730 kyr each of these glacial episodes coincided with a period of significant 18o enrichment 2 in the core resulting from changes in ocean isotope composition associated with major growth phases of the northern hemisphere ice sheets the inferred history of alpine glaciations on this remote south pacific island appears to be closely phase locked 3 kyr to world wide climate changes

exposure ages from mountain dipsticks in mac robertson land east antarctica indicate little change in ice sheet thickness since the last glacial maximum past changes in east antarctic ice sheet eais volume are poorly known and diffi cult to measure yet are critical for predicting the response of the ice sheet to modern climate change in particular it is important to identify the sources of sea level rise since the last glacial maximum lgm and ascertain the present day stability of the world s largest ice sheet we present altitudinal transects of 10 be and 26 al exposure ages across the framnes mountains in mac robertson land that allow the magnitude and timing of eais retreat to be quantifi ed our data show that the coastal eais thinned by at most 350 m in this region during the past 13 k y this reduction in ice sheet volume occurred over a 5 k y period and the present icesheet profi le was attained ca 7 ka in contrast to the west antarctic ice sheet which continues to retreat today combined with regional offshore and terrestrial geologic evidence our data suggest that the reduction in eais volume since the lgm was smaller than that indicated by contemporary ice sheet models and added little meltwater to the global oceans stability of the ice margin since the middle holocene provides support for the hypothesis that eais volume changes are controlled by growth and decay of northern hemisphere ice sheets and associated global sea level changes

late wisconsin and early holocene glacial history inner ross embayment antarctica abstract lateral drift sheets of outlet glaciers that pass through the transantarctic mountains constrain past changes of the huge ross ice drainage system of the antarctic ice sheet drift stratigraphy suggests correlation of reedy iii reedy glacier beardmore beardmore glacier britannia hatherton darwin glaciers ross sea mcmurdo sound and younger terra nova bay drifts radiocarbon dates place the outer limits of ross sea drift in late wisconsin time at 24 000 13 000 yr b p outlet glacier profiles from these drifts constrain late wisconsin ice sheet surface elevations within these constraints we give two extreme late wisconsin reconstructions of the ross ice drainage system both show little elevation change of the polar plateau coincident with extensive ice shelf grounding along the inner ross embayment however in the central ross embayment one reconstruction shows floating shelf ice whereas the other shows a grounded ice sheet massive late wisconsin holocene recession of grounded ice from the western ross embayment which was underway at 13 040 yr b p and completed by 6600 6020 yr b p was accompanied by little change in plateau ice levels inland of the transantarctic mountains sea level and basal melting probably controlled the extent of grounded ice in the ross embayment the interplay between the precipitation low late wisconsin and high holocene values and the influence of grounding on outlet glaciers late wisconsin thickening and late wisconsin holocene thinning with effects dying out inland probably controlled minor elevation changes of the polar plateau

what were the primary forcing mechanisms of high frequency holocene climate and glacier variations a compilation of holocene glacial advances throughout the world is compared with summer solar insolation integrated over the northern hemisphere and the magnitudes of global acid fallout from volcanic eruptions north of 20 s estimated from the acidity signal of annual ice layers in the crete and camp century ice cores in greenland correlation analysis between glacial advances versus volcanic eruptions yielded a correlation coefficient of r 0 71 a climatic forcing curve solar insolation and volcanic eruptions weighted 1 1 versus glacial advances increased the correlation coefficient to r 0 90 this suggests that the combined effect of volcanic aerosols and orbital related northern hemisphere summer insolation may have been the primary forcing mechanism of worldwide climate and glacier fluctuations throughout the holocene

a 150 000 year climatic record from antarctic ice during much of the quaternary the earth s climate has undergone drastic changes most notably successive glacial and interglacial episodes the past 150 kyr includes such a climatic cycle the last interglacial the last glacial and the present holocene interglacial a new climatic time series for this period has been obtained using 18 o data from an antarctic ice core

antarctic topography at the eocene oligocene boundary we present a reconstruction of the antarctic topography at the eocene oligocene ca 34 ma climate transition this provides a realistic key boundary condition for modeling the first big antarctic ice sheets at this time instead of using the present day bedrock topography which has changed significantly from millions of years of tectonism and erosion we reconstruct topography using a set of tools including ice sheet erosion models models of thermal subsidence and plate movement erosion estimates are constrained with offshore sediment volumes estimated from seismic stratigraphy maximum and minimum topographic reconstructions are presented as indicators of the range of uncertainty our results point to a significant upland area in the ross sea marie byrd land and weddell sea sectors in addition east antarctic coastal troughs are much shallower than today due to the restoration of material that has been selectively eroded by the evolving ice sheets parts of east antarctica have not changed since the e o boundary because they were protected under non erosive cold based ice the reconstructions provide a better defined boundary condition for modeling that seeks to understand interaction between the antarctic ice sheet and climate along with more robust estimates of past ice volumes under a range of orbital settings and greenhouse gas concentrations

ice core sample measurements give atmospheric co 2 content during the past 40 000 yr recent measurements1 2 on ice samples from camp century greenland 77 10 n 61 08 w byrd station antarctica 80 01 s 110 31 w and dome c 74 40 s 125 10 e suggest that during the late part of the last glaciation the atmospheric co2 concentration was significantly lower than during the holocene further investigation of this natural increase of the atmospheric co2 concentration in the past should aid our understanding of the climatic implications of the man made co2 increase since the beginning of industrialization3 here we report new and precise measurements of the co2 concentration of the air occluded in bubbles of ice samples from camp century and byrd station using a new dry extraction technique the extracted gases were analysed with an ir laser spectrometer irls samples from 22 different depths were analysed from each core the samples are distributed over a depth interval corresponding approximately to the past 40 000 yr in addition results for ice samples from selected depth horizons from a colder region north central greenland 74 37 n 39 36 w and from a warmer region dye 3 greenland 65 11 n 43 50 w are given based on these results we estimate the trend of the atmospheric co2 concentration during the past 40 000 yr

stability of the west antarctic ice sheet in a warming world equivalent to 0 28 to 0 56 mm yr 1 sea level rise with the rate growing over at least the past two decades 1 4 these observations intensify concerns about the ice sheet s stability that were first raised more than four decades ago 5

history of the grounded ice sheet in the ross sea sector of antarctica during the last glacial maximum and the last termination knowledge of variations in the extent and thickness of the antarctic ice sheet is key for understanding the behaviour of southern hemisphere glaciers during the last ice age and for addressing issues involving global sea level ocean circulation and climate change insight into past ice sheet behaviour also will aid predictions of future ice sheet stability here we review ter restrial evidence for changes in ice geometry that occurred in the ross sea sector of antarctica at the last glacial maximum lgm and during subsequent deglaciation during the lgm a thick grounded ice sheet extended close to the continental shelf edge in the ross embayment this ice reached surface elevations of more than 1000 m along the coast of the central and southern trans antarctic mountains and marie byrd land the local lgm occurred by 18 ka on the coast but as late as 7 10 ka inland the first significant thinning took place at roughly 13 ka with most ice loss happening in the holocene this history makes it unlikely that the ross sea sector was a major contributor to meltwater pulse 1a mwp 1a resolution of a possible antarctic origin for mwp 1a awaits detailed reconstructions from all sectors of the ice sheet the antarctic ice sheet contains the world s larg est reservoir of fresh water and is a major control on southern hemisphere climate a history of changes in ice sheet extent and thickness is vital for answering questions involving the initiation of southern hemisphere glaciation and deglaciation

holocene glacier variations of blaisen hardangerjokulen central southern norway abstract a 1 m deep gully section 460 m beyond the maximum little ice age marginal moraines of blaisen hardangerjokulen central southern norway revealed alternations of minerogenic and organic sediments the geographical geological settings of the dated section provides a unique on off signal of holocene glacier fluctuations of blaisen lithostratigraphy sediment characteristics and radiocarbon dates from the study section indicate one period of glacier re advance between the late preboreal deglaciation of the inland ice sheet and 8660 100 yr b p a grey sand layer 56 57 cm below the surface is interpreted to be of fluvial colluvial origin and is radiocarbon dated to about 7700 yr b p at 48 cm below the surface a bluish grey sand silt layer is radiocarbon dated to 7590 12 yr b p 6560 6240 b c and interpreted to be glaciofluvial origin a minor glacier oscillation postdates 1130 70 yr b p 810 990 a d the medieval little ice age glacier advance of blaisen beyond its modern extent occurred after 1040 60 yr b p 960 1030 a d calculations of the modern and little ice age equilibrium line altitudes elas on hardangerjokulen suggest an ela depression of ca 130 m during the little ice age maximum