West Antarctic Ice Sheet retreat driven by Holocene warm water incursions

Glaciological and oceanographic observations coupled with numerical models show that warm Circumpolar Deep Water (CDW) upwelling onto the West Antarctic continental shelf causes melting of the undersides of floating ice shelves. Because these ice shelves buttress glaciers feeding into them, their oc...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature
Main Authors: Hillenbrand, Claus-Dieter, Smith, James A., Hodell, David A., Greaves, Mervyn, Poole, Christopher R., Kender, Sev, Williams, Mark, Andersen, Thorbjørn Joest, Jernas, Patrycja E., Elderfield, Henry, Klages, Johann P., Roberts, Stephen J., Gohl, Karsten, Larter, Robert D., Kuhn, Gerhard
Format: Text
Language:English
Published: 2017
Subjects:
Article
Amundsen Sea
Antarctic
Buttress
West Antarctic Ice Sheet
Antarc*
Ice Sheet
Ice Shelf
Ice Shelves
Online Access:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5510715/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28682333
https://doi.org/10.1038/nature22995
Description
Summary:Glaciological and oceanographic observations coupled with numerical models show that warm Circumpolar Deep Water (CDW) upwelling onto the West Antarctic continental shelf causes melting of the undersides of floating ice shelves. Because these ice shelves buttress glaciers feeding into them, their ocean-induced thinning is driving Antarctic ice-sheet loss today. Here we present the first multi-proxy data based reconstruction of variability in CDW inflow to the Amundsen Sea sector, the most vulnerable part of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, during the last 11,000 years. The chemical composition of foraminifer shells and benthic foraminifer assemblages in marine sediments indicate that enhanced CDW upwelling, controlled by the latitudinal position of the Southern Hemisphere westerly winds, forced deglaciation of this sector both until 7,500 years ago, when an ice-shelf collapse may have caused rapid ice-sheet thinning further upstream, and since the 1940s. These results increase confidence in the predictive capability of current ice-sheet models.

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