Interhemispheric Ice-Sheet Synchronicity During the Last Glacial Maximum

The timing of the last maximum extent of the Antarctic ice sheets relative to those in the Northern Hemisphere remains poorly understood. We develop a chronology for the Weddell Sea sector of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet that, combined with ages from other Antarctic ice-sheet sectors, indicates that...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Science
Main Authors: Weber, M. E., Clark, P. U., Ricken, W., Mitrovica, J. X., Hostetler, S. W., Kuhn, Gerhard
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:unknown
Published: 2011
Subjects:
Antarctic
The Antarctic
Weddell Sea
East Antarctic Ice Sheet
Weddell
Antarc*
Ice Sheet
North Atlantic Deep Water
North Atlantic
Online Access:https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/25671/
https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1209299
https://hdl.handle.net/10013/epic.39046
Description
Summary:The timing of the last maximum extent of the Antarctic ice sheets relative to those in the Northern Hemisphere remains poorly understood. We develop a chronology for the Weddell Sea sector of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet that, combined with ages from other Antarctic ice-sheet sectors, indicates that the advance to and retreat from their maximum extent was within dating uncertainties synchronous with most sectors of Northern Hemisphere ice sheets. Surface climate forcing of Antarctic mass balance would probably cause an opposite response, whereby a warming climate would increase accumulation but not surface melting. Our new data support teleconnections involving sea-level forcing from Northern Hemisphere ice sheets and changes in North Atlantic deep-water formation and attendant heat flux to Antarctic grounding lines to synchronize the hemispheric ice sheets.

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