On the role of melt lakes on the speed of ice-sheet deglaciation
Written by Aurélien Quiquet no comments
Under current and forecasted climate change, it is expected that the current large ice-sheets (Greenland and Antarctica) will partially melt. One question is whether current ice sheet models include the necessary processes to dynamically simulate ice-sheet retreat. To better understand the capability of current ice-sheet models to simulate the dynamical behavior of ice-sheet retreat in periods of large climate warming, one period of interest is the last deglaciation (21 ka B.P. - 7 ka B.P.). When ice-sheet are retreating, the melt water is forming large lakes that are formed in the area where the surface is depressed by the ice-sheets. We show that these lakes can lead to large-scale ice sheet collapse and rapid sea-level rise.
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