Document Type
Article
Publication Date
Summer 7-1-2025
Journal / Book Title
Nature Communications
Abstract
Mass loss from polar ice sheets is poorly constrained in estimates of future global sea-level rise. Today, the marine-based West Antarctic Ice Sheet is losing mass at an accelerating rate, most notably in the Thwaites and Pine Island glacier drainage basins. Early Pliocene surface temperatures were about 4 °C warmer than preindustrial and maximum sea level stood ~20 m above present. Using data from a sediment archive on the Amundsen Sea continental rise, we investigate the impact of prolonged Pliocene ocean warmth on the ice-sheet−ocean system. We show that, in contrast to today, during peak ocean warming ~4.6 − 4.5 Ma, terrigenous muds accumulated rapidly under a weak bottom current regime after spill-over of dense shelf water with high suspended load down to the rise. From sediment provenance data we infer major retreat of the Thwaites Glacier system at ~4.4 Ma several hundreds of km inland from its present grounding line position, highlighting the potential for major Earth System changes under prolonged future warming.
DOI
10.1038/s41467-025-60772-8
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
MSU Digital Commons Citation
Passchier, Sandra; Hillenbrand, Claus-Dieter; Hemming, Sidney R.; Ehrmann, Werner; Frederichs, Thomas; Bohaty, Steven M.; Leon, Ronald; Libman-Roshal, Olga; Mino-Moreira, Lisbeth; Gohl, Karsten; and Wellner, Julia S., "West Antarctic ice retreat and paleoceanography in the Amundsen Sea in the warm early Pliocene" (2025). Department of Earth and Environmental Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works. 725.
https://digitalcommons.montclair.edu/earth-environ-studies-facpubs/725
Published Citation
Passchier, Sandra, Hillenbrand, Claus-Dieter, Hemming, Sidney, Ehrmann, Werner, Frederichs, Thomas, Bohaty, Steve_M, Leon, Ronald, Libman-Roshal, Olga, Mino-Moreira, Lisbeth, Gohl, Karsten, & Wellner, Julia. West Antarctic ice retreat and paleoceanography in the Amundsen Sea in the warm early Pliocene. Nature Communications, 16 (1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-60772-8
Comments
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