Articles | Volume 17, issue 3
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-17-1247-2023
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-17-1247-2023
Research article
 | 
15 Mar 2023
Research article |  | 15 Mar 2023

Holocene history of the 79° N ice shelf reconstructed from epishelf lake and uplifted glaciomarine sediments

James A. Smith, Louise Callard, Michael J. Bentley, Stewart S. R. Jamieson, Maria Luisa Sánchez-Montes, Timothy P. Lane, Jeremy M. Lloyd, Erin L. McClymont, Christopher M. Darvill, Brice R. Rea, Colm O'Cofaigh, Pauline Gulliver, Werner Ehrmann, Richard S. Jones, and David H. Roberts

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Cited articles

An, L., Rignot, E., Wood, M., Willis, J. K., Mouginot, J., and Khan, S. A.: Ocean melting of the Zachariae Isstrom and Nioghalvfjerdsfjorden glaciers, northeast Greenland, P. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 118, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2015483118, 2021. 
Antoniades, D., Francus, P., Pienitz, R., St-Onge, G., and Vincent, W. F.: Holocene dynamics of the Arctic's largest ice shelf, P. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 108, 18899–18904, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1106378108, 2011. 
Arz, H., Patzold, J., and Wefer, G.: Climatic changes during the last deglaciation recorded in sediment cores from the northeastern Brazilian Continental Margin, Geo-Mar. Lett., 19, 209–218, 1999. 
Aschwanden, A., Fahnestock, M. A., Truffer, M., Brinkerhoff, D. J., Hock, R., Khroulev, C., Mottram, R., and Khan, S. A.: Contribution of the Greenland Ice Sheet to sea level over the next millennium, Science Advances, 5, eaav9396, https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aav9396, 2019. 
Axford, Y., Lasher, G. E., Kelly, M. A., Osterberg, E. C., Landis, J., Schellinger, G. C., Pfeiffer, A., Thompson, E., and Francis, D. R.: Holocene temperature history of northwest Greenland – With new ice cap constraints and chironomid assemblages from Deltaso, Quaternary Sci. Rev., 215, 160–172, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2019.05.011, 2019. 
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Short summary
The Greenland Ice Sheet is melting at an accelerating rate. To understand the significance of these changes we reconstruct the history of one of its fringing ice shelves, known as 79° N ice shelf. We show that the ice shelf disappeared 8500 years ago, following a period of enhanced warming. An important implication of our study is that 79° N ice shelf is susceptible to collapse when atmospheric and ocean temperatures are ~2°C warmer than present, which could occur by the middle of this century.