The Antarctic ice sheet during the last glacial-interglacial cycle a three-dimensional experiment

• Main Author: Huybrechts, Philippe
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: 1990
• Subjects: Antarctic; The Antarctic; Weddell; Weddell Sea; Annals of Glaciology; Antarc*; Ice Sheet; Ice Shelf
• Online Access: https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/1460/; https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/1460/1/Huy1990b.pdf; https://hdl.handle.net/10013/epic.12051; https://hdl.handle.net/10013/epic.12051.d001

A complete 3-D thermo-mechanical ice sheet model for the entire Antarctic ice sheet, including an ice shelf, grounding line-dynamics and isostatic bedadjustment, is employed to simulate the response of the ice sheet during the last glacial-interglacial cycle with respect to changing environmental conditions.To do this, the Vostok temperature signal is used to force changes in surface temperature and accumulation rate and sea level prescribed by a piecewise linearsawtooth function. Model calculations started at 160 kyears BP. In line with glacial geological evidence, the most pronounced fluctuations are found in theWest Antarctic ice sheet and appear to be essentially controlled by changes in eustatic sea level. Grounding occurs more readily in the Weddell Sea than in theRoss Sea and, due to the long time scales involved, the ice sheet does not reach its full glacial extent until 16 kyears BP. The concomitant disintegration of theWest Antarctic ice sheet is triggered by a rise in sea level and takes around 6000 years to complete. The ice sheet then halts close to the present state and nocollapse takes place. This Holocene deglaciation appears to have added 6-8 million km3 of ice to the world oceans, corresponding with an Antarcticcontribution to world-wide sea level of 12-15 m.