Can Ice Sheets Trigger Abrupt Climatic Change?

Abstract

The discovery in recent years of abrupt climatic changes in climate proxy records from Greenland ice cores and North Atlantic sediment cores, and from other sites around the world, has diverted attention from gradual insolation changes caused by Earth`s orbital variations to more rapid processes on Earth`s surface as forcing Quaternary climatic change. In particular, forcing by ice sheets has been quantified for a major ice stream that drained the Laurentide Ice Sheet along Hudson Strait. The history of these recent discoveries leading to an interest in ice sheets is reviewed, and a case is made that ice sheets may drive abrupt climatic change that is virtually synchronous worldwide. Attention is focused on abrupt inception and termination of a Quaternary glaciation cycle, abrupt changes recorded as stadials and interstadials within the cycle, abrupt changes in ice streams that trigger stadials and interstadials, and abrupt changes in the Laurentide Ice Sheet linked to effectively simultaneous abrupt changes in its ice streams. Remaining work needed to quantify further these changes is discussed. 90 refs., 14 figs.