{"id":1160,"date":"2019-04-15T09:31:25","date_gmt":"2019-04-15T08:31:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mub.eps.manchester.ac.uk\/in-abstract\/?p=1160"},"modified":"2019-08-22T09:32:25","modified_gmt":"2019-08-22T08:32:25","slug":"eleven-phases-of-greenland-ice-sheet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mub.eps.manchester.ac.uk\/in-abstract\/eleven-phases-of-greenland-ice-sheet\/","title":{"rendered":"Eleven phases of Greenland ice sheet shelf-edge advance over the past 2.7 million years"},"content":{"rendered":"

Waxing and waning of the Greenland ice sheet chronicled by sediments beneath Baffin Bay<\/strong><\/p>\n

The reconstruction of former ice sheets is important for understanding the drivers and feedbacks between earth-, ocean-, cryosphere-, and atmospheric processes. The understanding of these mechanisms is essential for building and testing Earth systems models that can assess interactions between polar ice sheets and global climate. Scientists from the University of Manchester, Queen\u2019s University Belfast and the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland used extensive reflection seismic surveys to image structures beneath the seafloor offshore northwest Greenland to provide the first insight into the long-term (2.7 million years) history of the northwestern Greenland Ice Sheet. This work shows that on at least 11 occasions during this time the Greenland Ice Sheet became so large that it extended over 120 km beyond its present-day margin during peak glaciation. During intervening warmer periods the ice sheet melted back to near the present-day coastline, resulting in significant global and regional sea-level rise. This knowledge can help us understand how the NW Greenland Ice Sheet and analogous Antarctic ice shelves might evolve in the future in response to ongoing and future climate warming.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n