Reply to comment by Alley et al. on catastrophic ice shelf breakup as the source of Heinrich event icebergs

• Main Author: Christina L. Hulbe
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2005
• Subjects: Antarc*; Ice Shelf; Ice Shelves
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.612.5049; http://web.pdx.edu/~chulbe/science/reprints/2004PA001118.pdf

[1] The authors of Hulbe et al. [2004] are grateful for the opportunity afforded by Alley et al.’s [2005] remarks. The original draft of the comment was shared via e-mail, after which a compelling dialog ensued among the combined group of authors. This is, we believe, exactly what should transpire in the scientific marketplace of ideas, and we were pleased to be approached by Alley et al. [2005] in this way. [2] Three glaciologic issues do seem to warrant clarifi-cation. First, the notion of ice shelves as debris filters derives mainly from observations at the fronts of Antarc-tica’s large ice shelves, not from the small fringing ice shelves advocated in the work of Hulbe et al. [2004]. Indeed, the presence of significant englacial debris in the shattered remains of the Larsen B ice shelf was a primary