Relative sea-level data preclude major late Holocene ice-mass change in Pine Island Bay
The rapidly retreating Thwaites and Pine Island glaciers together dominate present-day ice loss from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and are implicated in runaway deglaciation scenarios. Knowledge of whether these glaciers were substantially smaller in the mid-Holocene and subsequently recovered to the...
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Nature Research
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ftimperialcol:oai:spiral.imperial.ac.uk:10044/1/98214 2023-05-15T13:24:08+02:00 Relative sea-level data preclude major late Holocene ice-mass change in Pine Island Bay Braddock, S Hall, BL Johnson, JS Balco, G Spoth, M Whitehouse, PL Campbell, S Goehring, BM Rood, DH Woodward, J 2022-05-04 http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/98214 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-022-00961-y English eng Nature Research Nature Geoscience 1752-0894 http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/98214 doi:10.1038/s41561-022-00961-y © The Author(s) 2022. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ CC-BY 6 1 Science & Technology Physical Sciences Geosciences Multidisciplinary Geology GROUNDING-LINE RETREAT SOUTH SHETLAND ISLANDS WEST ANTARCTICA MARGUERITE BAY EXPOSURE AGES VICTORIA LAND SHEET UPLIFT THWAITES GLACIER Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences Journal Article 2022 ftimperialcol https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-022-00961-y 2022-08-18T22:41:28Z The rapidly retreating Thwaites and Pine Island glaciers together dominate present-day ice loss from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and are implicated in runaway deglaciation scenarios. Knowledge of whether these glaciers were substantially smaller in the mid-Holocene and subsequently recovered to their present extents is important for assessing whether current ice recession is irreversible. Here we reconstruct relative sea-level change from radiocarbon-dated raised beaches at sites immediately seawards of these glaciers, allowing us to examine the response of the earth to loading and unloading of ice in the Amundsen Sea region. We find that relative sea level fell steadily over the past 5.5 kyr without rate changes that would characterize large-scale ice re-expansion. Moreover, current bedrock uplift rates are an order of magnitude greater than the rate of long-term relative sea-level fall, suggesting a change in regional crustal unloading and implying that the present deglaciation may be unprecedented in the past ~5.5 kyr. While we cannot preclude minor grounding-line fluctuations, our data are explained most easily by early Holocene deglaciation followed by relatively stable ice positions until recent times and imply that Thwaites and Pine Island glaciers have not been substantially smaller than present during the past 5.5 kyr. Article in Journal/Newspaper Amundsen Sea Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica Ice Sheet Pine Island Pine Island Bay South Shetland Islands Thwaites Glacier Victoria Land West Antarctica Imperial College London: Spiral Amundsen Sea Antarctic Island Bay ENVELOPE(-109.085,-109.085,59.534,59.534) Marguerite ENVELOPE(141.378,141.378,-66.787,-66.787) Marguerite Bay ENVELOPE(-68.000,-68.000,-68.500,-68.500) Pine Island Bay ENVELOPE(-102.000,-102.000,-74.750,-74.750) South Shetland Islands Thwaites Glacier ENVELOPE(-106.750,-106.750,-75.500,-75.500) Victoria Land West Antarctic Ice Sheet West Antarctica Nature Geoscience 15 7 568 572 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Imperial College London: Spiral |
op_collection_id |
ftimperialcol |
language |
English |
topic |
Science & Technology Physical Sciences Geosciences Multidisciplinary Geology GROUNDING-LINE RETREAT SOUTH SHETLAND ISLANDS WEST ANTARCTICA MARGUERITE BAY EXPOSURE AGES VICTORIA LAND SHEET UPLIFT THWAITES GLACIER Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences |
spellingShingle |
Science & Technology Physical Sciences Geosciences Multidisciplinary Geology GROUNDING-LINE RETREAT SOUTH SHETLAND ISLANDS WEST ANTARCTICA MARGUERITE BAY EXPOSURE AGES VICTORIA LAND SHEET UPLIFT THWAITES GLACIER Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences Braddock, S Hall, BL Johnson, JS Balco, G Spoth, M Whitehouse, PL Campbell, S Goehring, BM Rood, DH Woodward, J Relative sea-level data preclude major late Holocene ice-mass change in Pine Island Bay |
topic_facet |
Science & Technology Physical Sciences Geosciences Multidisciplinary Geology GROUNDING-LINE RETREAT SOUTH SHETLAND ISLANDS WEST ANTARCTICA MARGUERITE BAY EXPOSURE AGES VICTORIA LAND SHEET UPLIFT THWAITES GLACIER Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences |
description |
The rapidly retreating Thwaites and Pine Island glaciers together dominate present-day ice loss from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and are implicated in runaway deglaciation scenarios. Knowledge of whether these glaciers were substantially smaller in the mid-Holocene and subsequently recovered to their present extents is important for assessing whether current ice recession is irreversible. Here we reconstruct relative sea-level change from radiocarbon-dated raised beaches at sites immediately seawards of these glaciers, allowing us to examine the response of the earth to loading and unloading of ice in the Amundsen Sea region. We find that relative sea level fell steadily over the past 5.5 kyr without rate changes that would characterize large-scale ice re-expansion. Moreover, current bedrock uplift rates are an order of magnitude greater than the rate of long-term relative sea-level fall, suggesting a change in regional crustal unloading and implying that the present deglaciation may be unprecedented in the past ~5.5 kyr. While we cannot preclude minor grounding-line fluctuations, our data are explained most easily by early Holocene deglaciation followed by relatively stable ice positions until recent times and imply that Thwaites and Pine Island glaciers have not been substantially smaller than present during the past 5.5 kyr. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Braddock, S Hall, BL Johnson, JS Balco, G Spoth, M Whitehouse, PL Campbell, S Goehring, BM Rood, DH Woodward, J |
author_facet |
Braddock, S Hall, BL Johnson, JS Balco, G Spoth, M Whitehouse, PL Campbell, S Goehring, BM Rood, DH Woodward, J |
author_sort |
Braddock, S |
title |
Relative sea-level data preclude major late Holocene ice-mass change in Pine Island Bay |
title_short |
Relative sea-level data preclude major late Holocene ice-mass change in Pine Island Bay |
title_full |
Relative sea-level data preclude major late Holocene ice-mass change in Pine Island Bay |
title_fullStr |
Relative sea-level data preclude major late Holocene ice-mass change in Pine Island Bay |
title_full_unstemmed |
Relative sea-level data preclude major late Holocene ice-mass change in Pine Island Bay |
title_sort |
relative sea-level data preclude major late holocene ice-mass change in pine island bay |
publisher |
Nature Research |
publishDate |
2022 |
url |
http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/98214 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-022-00961-y |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(-109.085,-109.085,59.534,59.534) ENVELOPE(141.378,141.378,-66.787,-66.787) ENVELOPE(-68.000,-68.000,-68.500,-68.500) ENVELOPE(-102.000,-102.000,-74.750,-74.750) ENVELOPE(-106.750,-106.750,-75.500,-75.500) |
geographic |
Amundsen Sea Antarctic Island Bay Marguerite Marguerite Bay Pine Island Bay South Shetland Islands Thwaites Glacier Victoria Land West Antarctic Ice Sheet West Antarctica |
geographic_facet |
Amundsen Sea Antarctic Island Bay Marguerite Marguerite Bay Pine Island Bay South Shetland Islands Thwaites Glacier Victoria Land West Antarctic Ice Sheet West Antarctica |
genre |
Amundsen Sea Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica Ice Sheet Pine Island Pine Island Bay South Shetland Islands Thwaites Glacier Victoria Land West Antarctica |
genre_facet |
Amundsen Sea Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica Ice Sheet Pine Island Pine Island Bay South Shetland Islands Thwaites Glacier Victoria Land West Antarctica |
op_source |
6 1 |
op_relation |
Nature Geoscience 1752-0894 http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/98214 doi:10.1038/s41561-022-00961-y |
op_rights |
© The Author(s) 2022. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-022-00961-y |
container_title |
Nature Geoscience |
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15 |
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7 |
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