Did Holocene climate changes drive West Antarctic  grounding line retreat and readvance?

Neuhaus, Sarah U.; Tulaczyk, Slawek M.; Stansell, Nathan D.; Coenen, Jason J.; Scherer, Reed P.; Mikucki, Jill A.; Powell, Ross D.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-4655-2021

Articles | Volume 15, issue 10

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-4655-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-4655-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 15, issue 10

Research article

|

05 Oct 2021

Research article |

| 05 Oct 2021

Did Holocene climate changes drive West Antarctic grounding line retreat and readvance?

Sarah U. Neuhaus, Slawek M. Tulaczyk, Nathan D. Stansell, Jason J. Coenen, Reed P. Scherer, Jill A. Mikucki, and Ross D. Powell

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-4655-2021-supplement

Data sets

Temperature Reconstruction at the West Antarctic Ice Sheet Divide K. M. Cuffey https://doi.org/10.15784/600377

Short summary

We estimate the timing of post-LGM grounding line retreat and readvance in the Ross Sea sector of Antarctica. Our analyses indicate that the grounding line retreated over our field sites within the past 5000 years (coinciding with a warming climate) and readvanced roughly 1000 years ago (coinciding with a cooling climate). Based on these results, we propose that the Siple Coast grounding line motions in the middle to late Holocene were driven by relatively modest changes in regional climate.