Abstract
Abstract. We simulate the last glacial inception, 115 000 years ago, with a three dimensional thermomechanical ice sheet model of the Northern Hemisphere, forced by a comprehensive coupled climate model. High oceanic heat transport into the Nordic Seas prevents large scale ice growth over Scandinavia. Glacial inception in the region starts on the highest mountains in the south when sea surface temperatures in the Nordic Seas are reduced by at least 3 °C. Ice growth in Northern Scandinavia requires a cooling by at least 4 °C. This is in good agreement with marine proxy data from the Nordic Seas and North Atlantic as well as available terrestrial data. This study thus provides a physical understanding and revised timing of the first glacier advance over Scandinavia.
Highlights
During the past 800 000 years, climate has been relatively cold with ice sheets covering large parts of the Northern Hemisphere continents most of the time
At the last glacial maximum, 21 000 years before present, an ice sheet existed over North America with a volume equivalent to the present day Antarctic ice sheet, decreasing global sea level by 74 m (Peltier, 2004)
Little is known about advancing glaciers at the end of the last interglacial, the epoch when climate for the last time was similar to present day
Summary
During the past 800 000 years, climate has been relatively cold with ice sheets covering large parts of the Northern Hemisphere continents most of the time. Numerical ice sheet modeling could improve the understanding of this period but most studies focus on the primary inception regions over North America and western Siberia (Marshall and Clarke, 1999; Zweck and Huybrechts, 2005; Calov et al, 2005a; Kubatzki et al, 2006; Charbit et al, 2007; Peyaud et al, 2007) This is probably due to the lack of constraints on timing and extent of ice from data, and because the steep Scandinavian topography and variable climate are a challenge for the realistic representation of glaciers. In this study we suggest that a well documented transient strengthening of the Norwegian Atlantic Current delayed large scale glacier advance over Scandinavia until after 115 000 years ago (115 ka), followed by a rapid accumulation of ice. The climate and ice sheet models used are described in Sect.
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