Over the past 40,000 years, ice sheets thousands of kilometres apart have influenced one another through sea level changes, according to research published today in Nature.
Over the past 40,000 years, ice sheets thousands of kilometres apart have influenced one another through sea level changes, according to research published today in Nature. New modelling of ice sheet changes during the most recent glacial cycle by a McGill-led team offers a clearer idea of the mechanisms that drive change than had previously existed and explains newly available geological records. The study demonstrates, for the first time, that during this period, changes in the Antarctic ice sheet were driven by the melting ice sheets in the Northern Hemisphere.
As the climate cooled, during the last Ice Age, water became locked up in land ice in the Northern Hemisphere leading to dropping sea levels in Antarctica and consequent growth of the ice sheet. As the climate warmed, on the other hand, as it did through the period of deglaciation, the retreating ice in the Northern Hemisphere led to rising water levels around Antarctica, which in turn drove a retreat of the Antarctic ice sheet.
“Ice sheets can influence each other over great distances due to the water that flows between them,” explains senior author Natalya Gomez, from McGill’s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences. “It’s as though they were talking to one another through sea level changes.”
Read more at: McGill University
Photo Credit: 358611 via Pixabay
