Total Rebound: solid Earth isostatic response to the complete unloading of the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets

• Main Authors: Paxman, Guy, Austermann, Jacqueline, Hollyday, Andrew
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: NSF Arctic Data Center 2021
• Subjects: Ice sheet thickness; Flexural isostasy; Deglaciation; Bed topography; Antarctic; Greenland; Antarc*; Ice Sheet
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.18739/a27940v81; https://arcticdata.io/catalog/view/doi:10.18739/A27940V81

The land surface beneath the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets is isostatically depressed by the mass of the overlying ice. Here, we use an elastic plate model along with contemporary ice thickness and effective elastic thickness datasets to calculate the fully re-equilibrated flexural response of the solid Earth to the complete removal of the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets. As well as the unloading of the modern ice sheet load, we account for water loading feedbacks and the ongoing rebound due to the remaining isostatic disequilibrium from the Last Glacial Maximum. We provide NetCDF grid files of the total solid Earth surface response. We also quantify the uncertainties in solid surface deformation associated with a suite of elastic and viscoelastic Earth models. The resulting rebound fields have a number of applications for studying regional geodynamics, landscape evolution, cryosphere dynamics and relative sea level change.