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The Magnitude and Proximate Cause of Ice-Sheet Growth Since 35,000 yr B.P.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Isaac J. Winograd
Isaac J. Winograd*
Affiliation:
U.S. Geological Survey, 432 National Center, Reston, Virginia, 20192
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Abstract

The magnitude of late Wisconsinan (post-35,000 yr B.P.) ice-sheet growth in the Northern Hemisphere is not well known. Ice volume at ∼35,000 yr B.P. may have been as little as 20% or as much as 70% of the volume present at the last glacial maximum (LGM). A conservative evaluation of glacial–geologic, sea level, and benthic δ18O data indicates that ice volume at ∼35,000 yr B.P. was approximately 50% of that extant at the LGM (∼20,000 yr B.P.); that is, it doubled in about 15,000 yr. On the basis of literature for the North Atlantic and a sea-surface temperature (SST) data compilation, it appears that this rapid growth may have been forced by low-to-mid-latitude SST warming in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, with attendant increased moisture transport to high latitudes. The SST ice-sheet growth notion also explains the apparent synchroneity of late Wisconsinan mountain glaciation in both hemispheres.

Keywords

Northern Hemisphere ice sheetsice-sheet growthsea-surface temperaturelatest Wisconsinanlatest Pleistoceneice ages
Type
Research Article
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 56 , Issue 3 , November 2001 , pp. 299 - 307
Copyright
University of Washington

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