| Title | Holocene thinning of the Greenland ice sheet |
| |
| Author | Vinther, B M; Buchart, S L; Clausen, H B; Dahl-Jensen, D; Johnsen, S J; Fisher, D A; Koerner, R M; Raynaud, D; Lipenkov, V; Andersen, K K; Blunier, T; Rasmussen, S O; Steffensen, J P; Svensson, A
M |
| Source | Nature vol. 461, 2009 p. 385-388, https://doi.org/10.1038/nature08355 |
| Links | Supplementary information / Information
supplementaire
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| Image |  |
| Year | 2009 |
| Alt Series | Earth Sciences Sector, Contribution Series 20090324 |
| Publisher | Springer Nature |
| Document | serial |
| Lang. | English |
| Media | paper; on-line; digital |
| File format | html; pdf |
| Province | Nunavut |
| NTS | 120 |
| Area | Ellesmere Island; Greenland; Canada |
| Lat/Long WENS | -72.0000 -20.0000 84.0000 58.0000 |
| Subjects | surficial geology/geomorphology; Nature and Environment; environmental analysis; environmental studies; environmental impacts; climate, arctic; climate effects; climate; Holocene; ice samples; ice
thickness; icefields; ice; ice conditions; cores; core studies; Greenland Ice Sheet; Climate change; Cenozoic; Quaternary |
| Illustrations | plots |
| Program | Climate Change Geoscience Paleoenvironmental Perspectives on Climate Change |
| Released | 2009 09 17 |
| Abstract | On entering an era of global warming, the stability of the Greenland ice sheet (GIS) is an important concern1, especially in the light of new evidence of rapidly changing flow and melt conditions at the
GIS margins2. Studying the response of the GIS to past climatic change may help to advance our understanding of GIS dynamics. Existing evidence from stable isotopes (d18O) in water from GIS ice cores suggests that Holocene climate variability on the
GIS differed spatially3 and that a consistent Holocene climate optimum-the unusually warm period from about 9,000 to 6,000 years ago found in many northern-latitude palaeoclimate records4-did not exist. Here we extract both the Greenland Holocene
temperature history and the evolution of GIS surface elevation at four GIS locations. We achieve this by comparing d18O from GIS ice cores3,5 with d18O from ice cores from small marginal icecaps. Contrary to the earlier and inconsistent d18O evidence
from ice cores3,6, our new temperature history reveals a pronounced Holocene climatic optimum in Greenland coinciding with maximum thinning near the GIS margins. Our d18O-based results are corroborated by the air content of ice cores, a proxy for
surface elevation7. State-of-the-art ice sheet models are generally found to be underestimating the extent and changes in GIS elevation and area; our findings may help to improve the ability of models to reproduce the GIS response to Holocene
climate. |
| GEOSCAN ID | 261393 |
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