ALBERT

Description: Two approaches to ice-sheet modeling are available. Analytical modeling is the traditional approach. It solves the force (momentum), mass, and energy balances to obtain three-dimensional solutions over time, beginning with the Navier-Stokes equations for the force balance. Geometrical modeling employs simple geometry to solve the force and mass balance in one dimension along ice flow. It is useful primarily to provide the first-order physical basis of ice-sheet modeling for students with little background in mathematics (Hughes, 2012). The geometric approach uses changes in ice-bed coupling along flow to calculate changes in ice elevation and thickness, using floating fraction φ along a flowline or flowband, where φ = 0 for sheet flow, 0 

Description: Regional climate simulations are conducted using the Polar fifth-generation Pennsylvania State University (PSU)–NCAR Mesoscale Model (MM5) with a 60-km horizontal resolution domain over North America to explore the summer climate of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM: 21 000 calendar years ago), when much of the continent was covered by the Laurentide Ice Sheet (LIS). Output from a tailored NCAR Community Climate Model version 3 (CCM3) simulation of the LGM climate is used to provide the initial and lateral boundary conditions for Polar MM5. LGM boundary conditions include continental ice sheets, appropriate orbital forcing, reduced CO2 concentration, paleovegetation, modified sea surface temperatures, and lowered sea level. The simulated LGM summer climate is characterized by a pronounced low-level thermal gradient along the southern margin of the LIS resulting from the juxtaposition of the cold ice sheet and adjacent warm ice-free land surface. This sharp thermal gradient anchors the midtropospheric jet stream and facilitates the development of synoptic cyclones that track over the ice sheet, some of which produce copious liquid precipitation along and south of the LIS terminus. Precipitation on the southern margin is orographically enhanced as moist southerly low-level flow (resembling a contemporary Great Plains low-level jet configuration) in advance of the cyclone is drawn up the ice sheet slope. Composites of wet and dry periods on the LIS southern margin illustrate two distinctly different atmospheric flow regimes. Given the episodic nature of the summer rain events, it may be possible to reconcile the model depiction of wet conditions on the LIS southern margin during the LGM summer with the widely accepted interpretation of aridity across the Great Plains based on geological proxy evidence.

Description: Oriented assemblages of parallel ridges and elongated lakes are widespread on the coastal lowlands of northeast Eurasia and Arctic North America, in particular, in Alaska, Arctic Canada, and northeast Siberia. So far, only the oriented lakes have been of much scientific interest. They are believed to be formed by thermokarst in perennially frozen ice-rich sediments, while their orientation is accounted for either by impact of modern winds blowing at right angles to long axes of the lakes (when it concerns individual lakes), or by the influence of underlying bedrock structures (in the case of longitudinal and transverse alignment of lake clusters).En masse examination of space images suggests that oriented lake-and-ridge assemblages, not the oriented lakes alone, occur in the Arctic. Hence any theory about their formation should account for the origin and orientation of the assemblages as a whole. The existing hypotheses appear inadequate for this end, so this paper proposes that the assemblages were initially created by glacial activity, that is, by ice sheets that drumlinized and tectonized their beds, as well as by sub- and proglacial meltwater, and then they were modified by thermokarst, solifluction, and aeolian processes. This assumption opens up an avenue by which all known features of oriented landforms in the Arctic can be explained. The paper suggests that the oriented landforms in Siberia and Alaska are largely signatures of a marine Arctic ice sheet that transgressed from the north, while the Baffin Island and Mackenzie Delta forms were created by the respective sectors of the Laurentide ice sheet. The oriented features discussed belong to the last Late Glacial through the Early Holocene.

Description: The final effort of the CLIMAP project was a study of the last interglaciation, a time of minimum ice volume some 122,000 yr ago coincident with the Substage 5e oxygen isotopic minimum. Based on detailed oxygen isotope analyses and biotic census counts in 52 cores across the world ocean, last interglacial sea-surface temperatures (SST) were compared with those today. There are small SST departures in the mid-latitude North Atlantic (warmer) and the Gulf of Mexico (cooler). The eastern boundary currents of the South Atlantic and Pacific oceans are marked by large SST anomalies in individual cores, but their interpretations are precluded by no-analog problems and by discordancies among estimates from different biotic groups. In general, the last interglacial ocean was not significantly different from the modern ocean. The relative sequencing of ice decay versus oceanic warming on the Stage 6/5 oxygen isotopic transition and of ice growth versus oceanic cooling on the Stage 5e/5d transition was also studied. In most of the Southern Hemisphere, the oceanic response marked by the biotic census counts preceded (led) the global ice-volume response marked by the oxygen-isotope signal by several thousand years. The reverse pattern is evident in the North Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, where the oceanic response lagged that of global ice volume by several thousand years. As a result, the very warm temperatures associated with the last interglaciation were regionally diachronous by several thousand years. These regional lead-lag relationships agree with those observed on other transitions and in long-term phase relationships; they cannot be explained simply as artifacts of bioturbational translations of the original signals.

Description: Denton and Hughes (1983, Quaternary Research 20, 125–144) postulated that sea level linked a global ice-sheet system with both terrestrial and grounded marine components during late Quaternary ice ages. Summer temperature changes near Northern Hemisphere melting margins initiated sea-level fluctuations that controlled marine components in both polar hemispheres. It was further proposed that variations of this ice-sheet system amplified and transmitted Milankovitch summer half-year insolation changes between 45 and 75°N into global climatic changes. New tests of this hypothesis implicate sea level as a major control of the areal extent of grounded portions of the Antarctic Ice Sheet, thus fitting the concept of a globally interlocked ice-sheet system. But recent atmospheric modeling results (Manabe and Broccoli, 1985, Journal of Geophysical Research 90, 2167–2190) suggest that factors other than areal changes of the grounded Antarctic Ice Sheet strongly influenced Southern Hemisphere climate and terminated the last ice age simultaneously in both polar hemispheres. Atmospheric carbon dioxide linked to high-latitude oceans is the most likely candidate (Shackleton and Pisias, 1985, Atmospheric carbon dioxide, orbital forcing, and climate. In “The Carbon Cycle and Atmospheric CO2: Natural Variations Archean to Present” (E. T. Sundquest and W. S. Broecker, Eds.), pp. 303–318. Geophysical Monograph 32, American Geophysical Union, Washington, D.C.), but another potential influence was high-frequency climatic oscillations (2500 yr). It is postulated that variations in atmospheric carbon dioxide acted through an Antarctic ice shelf linked to the grounded ice sheet to produce and terminate Southern Hemisphere ice-age climate. It is further postulated that Milankovitch summer insolation combined with a warm high-frequency oscillation caused marked recession of Northern Hemisphere ice-sheet melting margins and the North Atlantic polar front about 14,000 14C yr B.P. This permitted renewed formation of North Atlantic Deep Water, which could well have controlled atmospheric carbon dioxide (W. S. Broecker, D. M. Peteet, and D. Rind, 1985, Nature (London) 315, 21–26). Combined melting and consequent sea-level rise from the three warming factors initiated irreversible collapse of the interlocked global ice-sheet system, which was at its largest but most vulnerable configuration.

Description: J. D. Hays, J. Imbrie, and N. J. Shackleton (1976, Science 194, 1121–1132) showed that the astronomical theory explained many features of late Quaternary ice-age climates, but they did not specify the physical mechanisms involved. Here it is proposed that interlocked variations of ice-sheet heat sinks in both polar hemispheres amplified and transmitted Milankovitch summer half-year insolation changes (a version of the astronomical theory) between 45° and 75°N into the globally synchronous climate changes recorded in geologic records. It is suggested that late Quaternary ice sheets had terrestrial components (grounded above sea level, melting margins, fluctuations controlled by climate) and marine components (grounded below sea level, drained largely by ice streams, limited melting margins, fluctuations controlled primarily by sea level and secondarily by climate, interior surface elevations coupled to downdraw through ice streams). Northern Hemisphere ice sheets were largely marine (with minor melting margins) in the Arctic and terrestrial (with major melting margins) in the midlatitudes. West Antarctic and peripheral East Antarctic ice was marine-based and lacked melting margins. Because of their geographic array, these terrestrial and marine components formed an ice-sheet system whose variations were coupled on a global scale. Milankovitch summer isolation changes near midlatitude Northern Hemisphere melting margins controlled most variations of this system, because advance or retreat of melting margins initiated concurrent eustatic sea-level change. Such sea-level change afforded the critical interlocking mechanism between terrestrial and marine components because it forced simultaneous expansion or contraction of marine margins in both polar hemispheres. This initiated an amplifying feedback loop among all marine components and influenced interior downdraw through ice streams. Arctic summer insolation change was less important because northern melting margins were relatively minor. Its greatest influence was on surface ablation of ice streams that controlled interior downdraw. This affected eustatic sea level and activated global linkage of marine sectors. By analogy with present-day Antarctica, late Quaternary ice sheets were enormous planetary heat sinks due to their reflective and radiative surface characteristics. It is suggested that the effectiveness of these ice-sheet heat sinks varied with their areal extent and interior surface elevation. Thus, it is postulated that concurrent growth or decay of these interlocked ice-sheet heat sinks in both polar hemispheres served as the global amplifier of regional Milankovitch summer insolation.

Description: Jakobshavns Isbræ (69 °10′ N, 49 °59′ W) drains about 6.5% of the Greenland ice sheet and is the fastest ice stream known. The Jakobshavns Isbræ basin of about 10 000 km2 was mapped photogrammetrically from four sets of aerial photography, two taken in July 1985 and two in July 1986. Positions and elevations of several hundred natural features on the ice surface were determined for each epoch by photogrammetric block aerial triangulation, and surface velocity vectors were computed from the positions. The two flights in 1985 yielded the best results and provided most common points (716) for velocity determinations and are therefore used in the modeling studies. The data from these irregularly spaced points were used to calculate ice elevations and velocity vectors at uniformly spaced grid points 3 km apart by interpolation. The field of surface strain rates was then calculated from these gridded data and used to compute the field of surface deviatoric stresses, using the flow law of ice, for rectilinear coordinates, X, Y pointing eastward and northward, and curvilinear coordinates. L, Τ pointing longitudinally and transversely to the changing ice-flow direction, Ice-surface elevations and slopes were then used to calculate ice thicknesses and the fraction of the ice velocity due to basal sliding. Our calculated ice thicknesses are in fair agreement with an ice-thickness map based on seismic sounding and supplied to us by K. Echelmeyer. Ice thicknesses were subtracted from measured ice-surface elevations to map bed topography. Our calculation shows that basal sliding is significant only in the 10–15 km before Jakobshavns Isbræ becomes afloat in Jakobshavns Isfjord.

Description: The paleoglaciological concept that during the Pleistocene glacial hemi-cycles a super-large, structurally complex ice sheet developed in the Arctic and behaved as a single dynamic system. as the Antarctic ice sheet does today, has not yet been subjected to concerted studies designed to test the predictions of this concept. Yet, it may hold the keys to solutions of major problems of paleoglaciology, to understanding climate and sea-level changes. The Russian Arctic is the least-known region exposed to paleoglaciation by a hypothetical Arctic ice sheet but now it is more open to testing the concept. Implementation of these tests is a challenging task, as the region is extensive and the available data are controversial. Well-planned and coordinated field projects are needed today, as well as broad discussion of the known evidence, existing interpretations and new field results. Here we present the known evidence for paleoglaciation of the Russian Arctic continental shelf and reconstruct possible marine ice sheets that could have produced that evidence.