The Magnitude and Proximate Cause of Ice-Sheet Growth Since 35,000 yr B.P.

• Published in: Quaternary Research
• Main Author: Winograd, Isaac J.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge University Press (CUP) 2001
• Subjects: Pacific; Ice Sheet; North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/qres.2001.2272; http://api.elsevier.com/content/article/PII:S0033589401922720?httpAccept=text/xml; http://api.elsevier.com/content/article/PII:S0033589401922720?httpAccept=text/plain; https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0033589400010334

Abstract The magnitude of late Wisconsinan (post-35,000 yr B.P.) ice-sheet growth in the Northern Hemisphere is not well known. Ice volume at ∼35,000 yr B.P. may have been as little as 20% or as much as 70% of the volume present at the last glacial maximum (LGM). A conservative evaluation of glacial–geologic, sea level, and benthic δ 18 O data indicates that ice volume at ∼35,000 yr B.P. was approximately 50% of that extant at the LGM (∼20,000 yr B.P.); that is, it doubled in about 15,000 yr. On the basis of literature for the North Atlantic and a sea-surface temperature (SST) data compilation, it appears that this rapid growth may have been forced by low-to-mid-latitude SST warming in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, with attendant increased moisture transport to high latitudes. The SST ice-sheet growth notion also explains the apparent synchroneity of late Wisconsinan mountain glaciation in both hemispheres.