The response of a simple antarctic ice-flow model to temperature and sea-level fluctuations over the Cenozoic era

Abstract

An ice-flow model is used to simulate the Antarctic ice-sheet volume and deep-sea temperature record during Cenozoic times. We used a vertically integrated axisymmetric ice-sheet model, including bedrock adjustment. In order to overcome strong numerical hysteresis effects during climate change, the model is solved on a stretching grid. The Cenozoic reconstruction of the Antarctic ice sheet is accomplished by splitting the global oxygen isotope record derived from benthic foraminifera into an ice-volume and a deep-sea temperature component. The model is tuned to reconstruct the initiation of a large ice sheet of continental size at 34 Ma. The resulting ice volume curve shows that small ice caps (<107 km3) could have existed during Paleocene and Eocene times. Fluctuations during the Miocene are large, indicating a retreat back from the coast and a vanishing ice flux across the grounding line, but with ice volumes still up to 60% of the present-day volume. The resulting deep-sea temperature curve shows similarities with the paleotemperature curve derived from Mg/Ca in benthic calcite from 25 Ma till the present, which supports the idea that the ice volume is well reproduced for this period. Before 34 Ma, the reproduced deep-sea temperature is slightly higher than is generally assumed. Global sea-level change turns out to be of minor importance when considering the Cenozoic evolution of the ice sheet until 5 Ma.