Simulated retreat of the Minch Ice Stream, northwest Scotland, during the last glacial cycle

Uncertainties in future sea level projections are dominated by our limited understanding of the dynamical processes that control instabilities of marine ice sheets. A valuable case to examine these processes is the last deglaciation of the British-Irish Ice Sheet. The Minch Ice Stream, which drained a large proportion of ice from the northwest sector of the British-Irish Ice Sheet during the last deglaciation, is well constrained, with abundant empirical data which could be used to inform, validate and analyse numerical ice sheet simulations. We use BISICLES, a higher-order ice sheet model, to examine the dynamical processes that controlled the retreat of the Minch Ice Stream. We simulate retreat from the shelf edge under constant "warm" surface mass balance and subshelf melt, to isolate the role of internal ice dynamics from external forcings. The model simulates a slowdown of retreat as the ice stream becomes laterally confined at a "pinning-point" between mainland Scotland and the Isle of Lewis. At this stage, the presence of ice shelves became a major control on deglaciation, providing buttressing to upstream ice. Subsequently, the presence of a reverse slope inside the Minch Strait produces an acceleration in retreat, leading to a "collapsed" state, even when the climate returns to the initial "cold" conditions. Our simulations demonstrate the importance of the Marine Ice Sheet Instability and ice shelf buttressing during the deglaciation of parts of the British-Irish Ice Sheet. Thus, geological data could be used to constrain these processes in ice sheet models used for projecting the future of our contemporary ice sheets.



Funding was provided by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) SPHERES Doctoral Training Partnership (NE/L002574/1) with CASE support from the British Geological Survey.

Simple

Alternate title

Polar Data Centre (PDC) record GB/NERC/BAS/PDC/01097
Date (Publication)
2018-09-20
Citation identifier
http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/dms/metadata.php?id= / GB/NERC/BAS/PDC/01097
Point of contact
Organisation name Individual name Electronic mail address Role

British Antarctic Survey

pdc@bas.ac.uk

Custodian

Polar Data Centre, Natural Environment Research Council, UK Research & Innovation

Gandy, N.

pdc@bas.ac.uk

Originator
Maintenance and update frequency
Unknown
Keywords

  • NDGO0001

NERC OAI Harvesting

  • NERC_DDC

GCMD Parameter Valids

  • EARTH SCIENCE > Cryosphere > Glaciers/Ice Sheets > Glacier Mass Balance/Ice Sheet Mass Balance

  • EARTH SCIENCE > Cryosphere > Glaciers/Ice Sheets > Glacier Motion/Ice Sheet Motion

  • EARTH SCIENCE > Cryosphere > Glaciers/Ice Sheets > Glacier Topography/Ice Sheet Topography

  • EARTH SCIENCE > Cryosphere > Glaciers/Ice Sheets > Ice Sheets

  • EARTH SCIENCE > Hydrosphere > Glaciers/Ice Sheets > Glacier Mass Balance/Ice Sheet Mass Balance

  • EARTH SCIENCE > Hydrosphere > Glaciers/Ice Sheets > Glacier Motion/Ice Sheet Motion

  • EARTH SCIENCE > Hydrosphere > Glaciers/Ice Sheets > Glacier Topography/Ice Sheet Topography

  • EARTH SCIENCE > Hydrosphere > Glaciers/Ice Sheets > Ice Sheets

  • EARTH SCIENCE > Paleoclimate > Paleoclimate Reconstructions

  • EARTH SCIENCE > Solid Earth > Geomorphology > Glacial Landforms/Processes

BAS Free-text keywords

  • BISICLES

  • British-Irish Ice Sheet

  • Ice Shelf Buttressing

  • Marine Ice Sheet Instability

  • Minch Palaeo Ice Stream
Use limitation

This data is governed by the NERC data policy http://www.nerc.ac.uk/research/sites/data/policy/ and supplied under Open Government Licence v.3 http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/

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Other constraints

This data is governed by the NERC data policy http://www.nerc.ac.uk/research/sites/data/policy/ and supplied under Open Government Licence v.3 http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/

Language
English
Topic category
  • Climatology, meteorology, atmosphere
  • Environment
  • Geoscientific information
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OGP / urn:ogc:def:crs:EPSG::4326
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    Polar Data Centre - British Antarctic Survey

    pdc@bas.ac.uk

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         		https://ramadda.data.bas.ac.uk/repository/entry/show?entryid=5f5bad08-c968-4840-8bb0-1388ce70d42e

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    INSPIRE / Conformity_001

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    Metadata

    File identifier
    GB_NERC_BAS_PDC_01097 XML
    Metadata language
    English
    Hierarchy level
    Dataset
    Date stamp
    2018-09-20
    Metadata standard name

    NERC profile of ISO19115:2003
    Metadata standard version

    1.0
    Metadata author
    Organisation name Individual name Electronic mail address Role

    British Antarctic Survey

    pdc@bas.ac.uk

    		Point of contact
    Dataset URI

    http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/dms/metadata.php?id=GB/NERC/BAS/PDC/01097

     
     

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