The oscillations between glacial and interglacial climate conditions over the past three million years have been characterized by a transfer of immense amounts of water between two of its largest reservoirs on Earth -- the ice sheets and the oceans. Since the latest of these oscillations, the Last Glacial Maximum (between about 30,000 and 19,000 years ago), approximately 50 million cubic kilometres of ice has melted from the land-based ice sheets, raising global sea level by approximately 130 metres. Such rapid changes in sea level are part of a complex pattern of interactions between the atmosphere, oceans, ice sheets and solid earth, all of which have different response timescales. The trigger for the sea-level fluctuations most probably lies with changes in insolation, caused by astronomical forcing, but internal feedback cycles complicate the simple model of causes and effects.

Links between climate and sea levels for the past three million years

Large ice sheets actively interact with the rest of the climate system by amplifying, pacing, and potentially driving global climate change over several time scales. Direct and indirect influences of ice sheets on climate cause changes in ocean surface temperatures, ocean circulation, continental water balance, vegetation, and land-surface albedo, which in turn cause additional feedbacks in the climate system and help to synchronize global climate change. The effect of the underlying geological substrate on ice-sheet dynamics may be the missing link in understanding the ice sheet–climate interactions that are integral to the middle Pleistocene transition; the 100,000-year climate cycle; high-amplitude, millennial-scale climate variability; and low–aspect ratio ice sheets of the Last Glacial Maximum.

/pdf/northern-hemisphere-ice-sheet-influences-on-global-climate-1umvhio9s6.pdf

Northern Hemisphere Ice-Sheet Influences on Global Climate Change

http://people.rses.anu.edu.au/lambeck_k/pdf/239.pdf?origin=publication_detail

Sea-level change through the last glacial cycle: geophysical, glaciological and palaeogeographic consequences

The first results of the UVic Earth System Model coupled to a land surface scheme and a dynamic global vegetation model are presented in this study. In the first part the present day climate simulation is discussed and compared to observations. We then compare a simulation of an ice age inception (forced with 116 ka BP orbital parameters and an atmospheric CO2 concentration of 240 ppm) with a preindustrial run (present day orbital parameters, atmospheric [CO2] = 280 ppm). Emphasis is placed on the vegetation’s response to the combined changes in solar radiation and atmospheric CO2 level. A southward shift of the northern treeline as well as a global decrease in vegetation carbon is observed in the ice age inception run. In tropical regions, up to 88% of broadleaf trees are replaced by shrubs and C4 grasses. These changes in vegetation cover have a remarkable effect on the global climate: land related feedbacks double the atmospheric cooling during the ice age inception as well as the reduction of the meridional overturning in the North Atlantic. The introduction of vegetation related feedbacks also increases the surface area with perennial snow significantly.

The role of land surface dynamics in glacial inception: a study with the UVic Earth System Model

Using glacial rebound models we have inverted observations of crustal rebound and shoreline locations to estimate the ice thickness for the major glaciations over northern Eurasia and to predict the palaeo-topography from late MIS-6 ( the Late Saalian at c. 140 kyr BP) to MIS-4e ( early Middle Weichselian at c. 64 kyr BP). During the Late Saalian, the ice extended across northern Europe and Russia with a broad dome centred from the Kara Sea to Karelia that reached a maximum thickness of c. 4500 m and ice surface elevation of c. 3500 m above sea level. A secondary dome occurred over Finland with ice thickness and surface elevation of 4000 m and 3000 m, respectively. When ice retreat commenced, and before the onset of the warm phase of the early Eemian, extensive marine flooding occurred from the Atlantic to the Urals and, once the ice retreated from the Urals, to the Taymyr Peninsula. The Baltic - White Sea connection is predicted to have closed at about 129 kyr BP, although large areas of arctic Russia remained submerged until the end of the Eemian. During the stadials (MIS-5d, 5b, 4) the maximum ice was centred over the Kara - Barents Seas with a thickness not exceeding c. 1200 m. Ice-dammed lakes and the elevations of sills are predicted for the major glacial phases and used to test the ice models. Large lakes are predicted for west Siberia at the end of the Saalian and during MIS-5d, 5b and 4, with the lake levels, margin locations and outlets depending inter alia on ice thickness and isostatic adjustment. During the Saalian and MIS-5d, 5b these lakes overflowed through the Turgay pass into the Aral Sea, but during MIS-4 the overflow is predicted to have occurred north of the Urals. West of the Urals the palaeo-lake predictions are strongly controlled by whether the Kara Ice Sheet dammed the White Sea. If it did, then the lake levels are controlled by the topography of the Dvina basin with overflow directed into the Kama-Volga river system. Comparisons of predicted with observed MIS-5b lake levels of Komi Lake favour models in which the White Sea was in contact with the Barents Sea.

/pdf/constraints-on-the-late-saalian-to-early-middle-weichselian-5e4tom60vm.pdf

J.P. Szabo

Papers

Initiation and development of the Laurentide and Cordilleran Ice Sheets following the last interglaciation