A new glacial isostatic adjustment model of the Innuitian Ice Sheet, Arctic Canada

Abstract

A reconstruction of the Innuitian Ice Sheet (IIS) is developed that incorporates first-order constraints on its spatial extent and history as suggested by regional glacial geology studies. Glacial isostatic adjustment modelling of this ice sheet provides relative sea-level predictions that are in good agreement with measurements of post-glacial sea-level change at 18 locations. The results indicate peak thicknesses of the Innuitian Ice Sheet of approximately 1600 m, up to 400 m thicker than the minimum peak thicknesses estimated from glacial geology studies, but between approximately 1000 to 1500 m thinner than the peak thicknesses present in previous GIA models. The thickness history of the best-fit Innuitian Ice Sheet model developed here, termed SJD15, differs from the ICE-5G reconstruction and provides an improved fit to sea-level measurements from the lowland sector of the ice sheet. Both models provide a similar fit to relative sea-level measurements from the alpine sector. The vertical crustal motion predictions of the best-fit IIS model are in general agreement with limited GPS observations, after correction for a significant elastic crustal response to present-day ice mass change. The new model provides approximately 2.7 m equivalent contribution to global sea-level rise, an increase of +0.6 m compared to the Innuitian portion of ICE-5G. SJD15 is qualitatively more similar to the recent ICE-6G ice sheet reconstruction, which appears to also include more spatially extensive ice cover in the Innuitian region than ICE-5G.