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Major ice‐sheet change in the Weddell Sector of West Antarctica over the last 5000 years

Siegert, Martin J.; Kingslake, Jonny; Ross, Neil; Whitehouse, Pippa L.; Woodward, John; Jamieson, Stewart S.R.; Bentley, Michael J.; Winter, Kate; Wearing, Martin; Hein, Andrew S.; Jeofry, Hafeez; Sugden, David E.

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Authors

Martin J. Siegert

Jonny Kingslake

Neil Ross

John Woodward

Kate Winter

Martin Wearing

Andrew S. Hein

Hafeez Jeofry

David E. Sugden



Abstract

Until recently, little was known about the Weddell Sea sector of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. In the last 10 years, a variety of expeditions and numerical modelling experiments have improved knowledge of its glaciology, glacial geology, and tectonic setting. Two of the sector's largest ice streams rest on a steep reverse‐sloping bed yet, despite being vulnerable to change, satellite observations show contemporary stability. There is clear evidence for major ice‐sheet reconfiguration in the last few thousand years, however. Knowing precisely how the ice sheet has changed in the past, and when, would allow us to better understand whether it is now at risk. Two competing hypotheses have been established for this glacial history. In one, the ice sheet retreated and thinned progressively from its Last Glacial Maximum position. Retreat stopped at, or very near, the present position in the Late Holocene. Alternatively, in the Late Holocene the ice sheet retreated significantly upstream of the present grounding line, and then advanced to the present location due to glacial isostatic adjustment, and ice‐shelf and ice rise buttressing. Both hypotheses point to data and theory in their support, yet neither has been unequivocally tested or falsified. Here, we review geophysical evidence to determine how each hypothesis has been formed, where there are inconsistencies in the respective glacial histories, how they may be tested or reconciled, and what new evidence is required to reach a common model for the Late Holocene ice sheet history of the Weddell Sea sector of West Antarctica.

Citation

Siegert, M. J., Kingslake, J., Ross, N., Whitehouse, P. L., Woodward, J., Jamieson, S. S., …Sugden, D. E. (2019). Major ice‐sheet change in the Weddell Sector of West Antarctica over the last 5000 years. Reviews of Geophysics, 57(4), 1197-1223. https://doi.org/10.1029/2019rg000651

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Aug 11, 2019
Online Publication Date Nov 7, 2019
Publication Date Dec 31, 2019
Deposit Date Oct 10, 2019
Publicly Available Date Nov 21, 2019
Journal Reviews of Geophysics
Print ISSN 8755-1209
Electronic ISSN 1944-9208
Publisher American Geophysical Union
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 57
Issue 4
Pages 1197-1223
DOI https://doi.org/10.1029/2019rg000651

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Published Journal Article (Advance online version) (67.4 Mb)
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Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Copyright Statement
Advance online version © 2019. The Authors. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.






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