Dynamics of the Antarctic ice cap: II. Sensitivity experiments with a numerical ice sheet model with full thermo-mechanical coupling

• Main Author: Huybrechts, P.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 1988
• Subjects: Antarctic; East Antarctic Ice Sheet; The Antarctic; Vostok Station; Antarc*; Ice cap; ice core; Ice Sheet
• Online Access: http://www.vliz.be/nl/open-marien-archief?module=ref&refid=199159

An efficient numerical ice sheet model, including time dependence and full thermo-mechanical coupling, has been developed to investigate the thermal regime and overall configuration of a polar ice sheet with respect to changing environmental conditions. From basic sensitivity experiments, in which a schematic East-Antarctic Ice Sheet is forced with a typical glacial-interglacial climatic sheet, it is found that (i):the mutual interaction of temperature and deformation has a stabilizing effect on its steady state configuration and (ii) in the transient mode, this climatic transition initially leads to increased ice thickness due to enhanced accumulation, whereafter this trend is reversed due to a warmer base. Time scales for this reversal are of the order of 10³ years in marginal zones and of 10 4 years in interior parts. Time-dependent modelling of the Vostok flowline, indicates that the Vostok Station area has risen about 95 m since the beginning of the present interglacial due to thermo-mechanical effects, which is of particular interest in interpreting the palaeoclimatic signal of the obtained ice core there.