Marine ice sheet instability and ice shelf buttressing of the Minch Ice Stream, northwest Scotland
Uncertainties in future sea level projections are dominated by our limited understanding of the dynamical processes that control instabilities of marine ice sheets. The last deglaciation of the British–Irish Ice Sheet offers a valuable example to examine these processes. The Minch Ice Stream, which...
Published in: | The Cryosphere |
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European Geosciences Union
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Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1893/28372 https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-12-3635-2018 http://dspace.stir.ac.uk/bitstream/1893/28372/1/MarineIceSheetInstability.pdf |
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ftunivstirling:oai:dspace.stir.ac.uk:1893/28372 2023-05-15T13:49:59+02:00 Marine ice sheet instability and ice shelf buttressing of the Minch Ice Stream, northwest Scotland Gandy, Niall Gregoire, Lauren J Ely, Jeremy C Clark, Christopher D Hodgson, David M Lee, Victoria Bradwell, Tom Ivanovic, Ruza F University of Leeds University of Sheffield University of Bristol Biological and Environmental Sciences orcid:0000-0003-0947-3309 2018-11-23 application/pdf http://hdl.handle.net/1893/28372 https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-12-3635-2018 http://dspace.stir.ac.uk/bitstream/1893/28372/1/MarineIceSheetInstability.pdf en eng European Geosciences Union Gandy N, Gregoire LJ, Ely JC, Clark CD, Hodgson DM, Lee V, Bradwell T & Ivanovic RF (2018) Marine ice sheet instability and ice shelf buttressing of the Minch Ice Stream, northwest Scotland. Cryosphere , 12 (11), pp. 3635-3651. https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-12-3635-2018 http://hdl.handle.net/1893/28372 doi:10.5194/tc-12-3635-2018 WOS:000451029800001 2-s2.0-85057323630 1068377 http://dspace.stir.ac.uk/bitstream/1893/28372/1/MarineIceSheetInstability.pdf © Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ CC-BY Journal Article VoR - Version of Record 2018 ftunivstirling https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-12-3635-2018 2023-02-02T23:17:15Z Uncertainties in future sea level projections are dominated by our limited understanding of the dynamical processes that control instabilities of marine ice sheets. The last deglaciation of the British–Irish Ice Sheet offers a valuable example to examine these processes. The Minch Ice Stream, which drained a large proportion of ice from the northwest sector of the British–Irish Ice Sheet during the last deglaciation, is constrained with abundant empirical data which can be used to inform, validate, and analyse numerical ice sheet simulations. We use BISICLES, a higher-order ice sheet model, to examine the dynamical processes that controlled the retreat of the Minch Ice Stream. We perform simplified experiments of the retreat of this ice stream under an idealised climate forcing to isolate the effect of marine ice sheet processes, simulating retreat from the continental shelf under constant "warm" surface mass balance and sub-ice-shelf melt. The model simulates a slowdown of retreat as the ice stream becomes laterally confined at the mouth of the Minch strait between mainland Scotland and the Isle of Lewis, resulting in a marine setting similar to many large tidewater glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica. At this stage of the simulation, the presence of an ice shelf becomes a more important control on grounded ice volume, providing buttressing to upstream ice. Subsequently, the presence of a reverse slope inside the Minch strait produces an acceleration in retreat, leading to a "collapsed" state, even when the climate returns to the initial "cold" conditions. Our simulations demonstrate the importance of the marine ice sheet instability and ice shelf buttressing during the deglaciation of parts of the British–Irish Ice Sheet. We conclude that geological data could be applied to further constrain these processes in ice sheet models used for projecting the future of contemporary ice sheets. Article in Journal/Newspaper Antarc* Antarctica Greenland Ice Sheet Ice Shelf University of Stirling: Stirling Digital Research Repository Greenland The Cryosphere 12 11 3635 3651 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
University of Stirling: Stirling Digital Research Repository |
op_collection_id |
ftunivstirling |
language |
English |
description |
Uncertainties in future sea level projections are dominated by our limited understanding of the dynamical processes that control instabilities of marine ice sheets. The last deglaciation of the British–Irish Ice Sheet offers a valuable example to examine these processes. The Minch Ice Stream, which drained a large proportion of ice from the northwest sector of the British–Irish Ice Sheet during the last deglaciation, is constrained with abundant empirical data which can be used to inform, validate, and analyse numerical ice sheet simulations. We use BISICLES, a higher-order ice sheet model, to examine the dynamical processes that controlled the retreat of the Minch Ice Stream. We perform simplified experiments of the retreat of this ice stream under an idealised climate forcing to isolate the effect of marine ice sheet processes, simulating retreat from the continental shelf under constant "warm" surface mass balance and sub-ice-shelf melt. The model simulates a slowdown of retreat as the ice stream becomes laterally confined at the mouth of the Minch strait between mainland Scotland and the Isle of Lewis, resulting in a marine setting similar to many large tidewater glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica. At this stage of the simulation, the presence of an ice shelf becomes a more important control on grounded ice volume, providing buttressing to upstream ice. Subsequently, the presence of a reverse slope inside the Minch strait produces an acceleration in retreat, leading to a "collapsed" state, even when the climate returns to the initial "cold" conditions. Our simulations demonstrate the importance of the marine ice sheet instability and ice shelf buttressing during the deglaciation of parts of the British–Irish Ice Sheet. We conclude that geological data could be applied to further constrain these processes in ice sheet models used for projecting the future of contemporary ice sheets. |
author2 |
University of Leeds University of Sheffield University of Bristol Biological and Environmental Sciences orcid:0000-0003-0947-3309 |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Gandy, Niall Gregoire, Lauren J Ely, Jeremy C Clark, Christopher D Hodgson, David M Lee, Victoria Bradwell, Tom Ivanovic, Ruza F |
spellingShingle |
Gandy, Niall Gregoire, Lauren J Ely, Jeremy C Clark, Christopher D Hodgson, David M Lee, Victoria Bradwell, Tom Ivanovic, Ruza F Marine ice sheet instability and ice shelf buttressing of the Minch Ice Stream, northwest Scotland |
author_facet |
Gandy, Niall Gregoire, Lauren J Ely, Jeremy C Clark, Christopher D Hodgson, David M Lee, Victoria Bradwell, Tom Ivanovic, Ruza F |
author_sort |
Gandy, Niall |
title |
Marine ice sheet instability and ice shelf buttressing of the Minch Ice Stream, northwest Scotland |
title_short |
Marine ice sheet instability and ice shelf buttressing of the Minch Ice Stream, northwest Scotland |
title_full |
Marine ice sheet instability and ice shelf buttressing of the Minch Ice Stream, northwest Scotland |
title_fullStr |
Marine ice sheet instability and ice shelf buttressing of the Minch Ice Stream, northwest Scotland |
title_full_unstemmed |
Marine ice sheet instability and ice shelf buttressing of the Minch Ice Stream, northwest Scotland |
title_sort |
marine ice sheet instability and ice shelf buttressing of the minch ice stream, northwest scotland |
publisher |
European Geosciences Union |
publishDate |
2018 |
url |
http://hdl.handle.net/1893/28372 https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-12-3635-2018 http://dspace.stir.ac.uk/bitstream/1893/28372/1/MarineIceSheetInstability.pdf |
geographic |
Greenland |
geographic_facet |
Greenland |
genre |
Antarc* Antarctica Greenland Ice Sheet Ice Shelf |
genre_facet |
Antarc* Antarctica Greenland Ice Sheet Ice Shelf |
op_relation |
Gandy N, Gregoire LJ, Ely JC, Clark CD, Hodgson DM, Lee V, Bradwell T & Ivanovic RF (2018) Marine ice sheet instability and ice shelf buttressing of the Minch Ice Stream, northwest Scotland. Cryosphere , 12 (11), pp. 3635-3651. https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-12-3635-2018 http://hdl.handle.net/1893/28372 doi:10.5194/tc-12-3635-2018 WOS:000451029800001 2-s2.0-85057323630 1068377 http://dspace.stir.ac.uk/bitstream/1893/28372/1/MarineIceSheetInstability.pdf |
op_rights |
© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-12-3635-2018 |
container_title |
The Cryosphere |
container_volume |
12 |
container_issue |
11 |
container_start_page |
3635 |
op_container_end_page |
3651 |
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1766252689474191360 |