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GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 29, NO. 24, 2216, doi:10.1029/2002GL016078, 2002

Large-scale instabilities of the Laurentide ice sheet simulated in a fully coupled climate-system model

Reinhard Calov

Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Potsdam, Germany


Andrey Ganopolski

Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Potsdam, Germany


Vladimir Petoukhov

Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Potsdam, Germany


Martin Claussen

Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Potsdam, Germany


Ralf Greve

Department of Mechanics, Darmstadt University of Technology, Darmstadt, Germany


Abstract

Heinrich events, related to large-scale surges of the Laurentide ice sheet, represent one of the most dramatic types of abrupt climate change occurring during the last glacial. Here, using a coupled atmosphere-ocean-biosphere-ice sheet model, we simulate quasi-periodic large-scale surges from the Laurentide ice sheet. The average time between simulated events is about 7,000 yrs, while the surging phase of each event lasts only several hundred years, with a total ice volume discharge corresponding to 5–10 m of sea level rise. In our model the simulated ice surges represent internal oscillations of the ice sheet. At the same time, our results suggest the possibility of a synchronization between instabilities of different ice sheets, as indicated in paleoclimate records.

Published 27 December 2002.

Index Terms: 1827 Hydrology: Glaciology (1863); 1620 Global Change: Climate dynamics (3309); 3344 Meteorology and Atmospheric Dynamics: Paleoclimatology; 5416 Planetology: Solid Surface Planets: Glaciation.

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Citation: Calov, R., A. Ganopolski, V. Petoukhov, M. Claussen, and R. Greve (2002), Large-scale instabilities of the Laurentide ice sheet simulated in a fully coupled climate-system model, Geophys. Res. Lett., 29(24), 2216, doi:10.1029/2002GL016078.