Reconciling the ICE-6G-C reconstruction of glacial chronology with ice sheet dynamics: The cases of Greenland and Antarctica

Abstract

We describe a theoretical and numerical framework that has been developed to investigate the compatibility of the ICE-6G-C reconstruction of the glaciation histories of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets with the latest understanding of ice physics. The ICE-6G-C reconstruction has been produced solely on the basis of the theory of the glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA) process, and it has remained an issue as to whether such reconstructions of the time-dependent thickness variations of grounded continental ice sheets were compatible with physics-based ice mechanical considerations. Our analyses focus on the evolution over the last glacial cycle of these extent ice sheet complexes and demonstrate that the GIA-inferred models are entirely consistent with such considerations when uncertainties in (net) mass balance history are taken fully into account.