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...
Published in: | Nature Geoscience |
---|---|
Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , |
Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
Language: | unknown |
Published: |
Nature Publishing Group
2022
|
Subjects: | |
Online Access: | http://dro.dur.ac.uk/36132/ http://dro.dur.ac.uk/36132/1/36132.pdf https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-022-00961-y |
id |
ftunivdurham:oai:dro.dur.ac.uk.OAI2:36132 |
---|---|
record_format |
openpolar |
spelling |
ftunivdurham:oai:dro.dur.ac.uk.OAI2:36132 2023-05-15T13:24:05+02:00 Relative sea-level data preclude major late Holocene ice-mass change in Pine Island Bay Braddock, Scott Hall, Brenda L. Johnson, Joanne S. Balco, Greg Spoth, Meghan Whitehouse, Pippa L. Campbell, Seth Goehring, Brent M. Rood, Dylan H. Woodward, John 2022-07 application/pdf http://dro.dur.ac.uk/36132/ http://dro.dur.ac.uk/36132/1/36132.pdf https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-022-00961-y unknown Nature Publishing Group dro:36132 issn:1752-0894 issn: 1752-0908 doi:10.1038/s41561-022-00961-y http://dro.dur.ac.uk/36132/ https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-022-00961-y http://dro.dur.ac.uk/36132/1/36132.pdf 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/. CC-BY Nature geoscience, 2022, Vol.15(7), pp.568-572 [Peer Reviewed Journal] Article PeerReviewed 2022 ftunivdurham https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-022-00961-y 2022-07-28T22:25:18Z 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 Ice Sheet Pine Island Bay Durham University: Durham Research Online Amundsen Sea Antarctic Island Bay ENVELOPE(-109.085,-109.085,59.534,59.534) Pine Island Bay ENVELOPE(-102.000,-102.000,-74.750,-74.750) West Antarctic Ice Sheet Nature Geoscience 15 7 568 572 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Durham University: Durham Research Online |
op_collection_id |
ftunivdurham |
language |
unknown |
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, Scott Hall, Brenda L. Johnson, Joanne S. Balco, Greg Spoth, Meghan Whitehouse, Pippa L. Campbell, Seth Goehring, Brent M. Rood, Dylan H. Woodward, John |
spellingShingle |
Braddock, Scott Hall, Brenda L. Johnson, Joanne S. Balco, Greg Spoth, Meghan Whitehouse, Pippa L. Campbell, Seth Goehring, Brent M. Rood, Dylan H. Woodward, John Relative sea-level data preclude major late Holocene ice-mass change in Pine Island Bay |
author_facet |
Braddock, Scott Hall, Brenda L. Johnson, Joanne S. Balco, Greg Spoth, Meghan Whitehouse, Pippa L. Campbell, Seth Goehring, Brent M. Rood, Dylan H. Woodward, John |
author_sort |
Braddock, Scott |
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 Publishing Group |
publishDate |
2022 |
url |
http://dro.dur.ac.uk/36132/ http://dro.dur.ac.uk/36132/1/36132.pdf https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-022-00961-y |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(-109.085,-109.085,59.534,59.534) ENVELOPE(-102.000,-102.000,-74.750,-74.750) |
geographic |
Amundsen Sea Antarctic Island Bay Pine Island Bay West Antarctic Ice Sheet |
geographic_facet |
Amundsen Sea Antarctic Island Bay Pine Island Bay West Antarctic Ice Sheet |
genre |
Amundsen Sea Antarc* Antarctic Ice Sheet Pine Island Bay |
genre_facet |
Amundsen Sea Antarc* Antarctic Ice Sheet Pine Island Bay |
op_source |
Nature geoscience, 2022, Vol.15(7), pp.568-572 [Peer Reviewed Journal] |
op_relation |
dro:36132 issn:1752-0894 issn: 1752-0908 doi:10.1038/s41561-022-00961-y http://dro.dur.ac.uk/36132/ https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-022-00961-y http://dro.dur.ac.uk/36132/1/36132.pdf |
op_rights |
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/. |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-022-00961-y |
container_title |
Nature Geoscience |
container_volume |
15 |
container_issue |
7 |
container_start_page |
568 |
op_container_end_page |
572 |
_version_ |
1766377384519401472 |