EVOLUTION OF GROUNDING-LINE RETREAT ALONG THE MAC. ROBERTSON SHELF (EAST ANTARCTICA) FOR THE PAST 30,000 YEARS: CREATING RELIABLE SPATIOTEMPORAL BENCHMARKS FOR VALIDATING ICE-SHEET SIMULATIONS
The future behaviour of the Antarctic Ice Sheet is considered as one of the largest unknowns in global climate predictions. Dramatic and accelerating ice loss has been observed over the past few decades for numerous drainage basins of the ice sheet (Bentley et al., 2014, Mackintosh et al., 2014). However, those records only reflect a short moment of limited informative value when considering the length of a full cycle of ice sheet build-up and retreat. This emphasizes the strong need for reliable long-term data of ice-sheet change in time and space, particularly for sectors along the East Antarctic margin that play key roles in supplying the world oceans with bottom waters (Ohshima et al., 2013). We present newly acquired geophysical and geological datasets from the previously poorly studied east Antarctic Mac. Robertson Shelf (Leventer et al. 2006, Mackintosh et al., 2011). Combined analyses of these data will allow for creating a four-dimensional framework of ice-sheet change over the past ~30,000 years. These unique data provide valuable spatiotemporal records for benchmarking paleo-ice sheet models and thus contribute to improve simulations of ice-sheet changes in the coming decades and centuries. Furthermore, they advance our understanding of past variability in the formation of Antarctic Bottom Water that originates in this region today.
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