Articles | Volume 14, issue 3
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-1121-2020
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-1121-2020
Research article
 | 
31 Mar 2020
Research article |  | 31 Mar 2020

Western Greenland ice sheet retreat history reveals elevated precipitation during the Holocene thermal maximum

Jacob Downs, Jesse Johnson, Jason Briner, Nicolás Young, Alia Lesnek, and Josh Cuzzone

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Short summary
We use an inverse modeling approach based on the unscented transform (UT) and a new reconstruction of Holocene ice sheet retreat in western central Greenland to infer precipitation changes throughout the Holocene. Our results indicate that warming during the Holocene Thermal Maximum (HTM) was linked to elevated snowfall that slowed retreat despite high temperatures. We also find that the UT provides a computationally inexpensive approach to Bayesian inversion and uncertainty quantification.