Growth and retreat of the last British–Irish Ice Sheet, 31 000 to 15 000 years ago: the BRITICE‐CHRONO reconstruction

Clark, C. D. et al. (2022) Growth and retreat of the last British–Irish Ice Sheet, 31 000 to 15 000 years ago: the BRITICE‐CHRONO reconstruction. Boreas, 51(4), pp. 699-758. (doi: 10.1111/bor.12594)

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Abstract

The BRITICE‐CHRONO consortium of researchers undertook a dating programme to constrain the timing of advance, maximum extent and retreat of the British–Irish Ice Sheet between 31 000 and 15 000 years before present. The dating campaign across Ireland and Britain and their continental shelves, and across the North Sea included 1500 days of field investigation yielding 18 000 km of marine geophysical data, 377 cores of sea floor sediments, and geomorphological and stratigraphical information at 121 sites on land; generating 690 new geochronometric ages. These findings are reported in 28 publications including synthesis into eight transect reconstructions. Here we build ice sheet‐wide reconstructions consistent with these findings and using retreat patterns and dates for the inter‐transect areas. Two reconstructions are presented, a wholly empirical version and a version that combines modelling with the new empirical evidence. Palaeoglaciological maps of ice extent, thickness, velocity, and flow geometry at thousand‐year timesteps are presented. The maximum ice volume of 1.8 m sea level equivalent occurred at 23 ka. A larger extent than previously defined is found and widespread advance of ice to the continental shelf break is confirmed during the last glacial. Asynchrony occurred in the timing of maximum extent and onset of retreat, ranging from 30 to 22 ka. The tipping point of deglaciation at 22 ka was triggered by ice stream retreat and saddle collapses. Analysis of retreat rates leads us to accept our hypothesis that the marine‐influenced sectors collapsed rapidly. First order controls on ice‐sheet demise were glacio‐isostatic loading triggering retreat of marine sectors, aided by glaciological instabilities and then climate warming finished off the smaller, terrestrial ice sheet. Overprinted on this signal were second order controls arising from variations in trough topographies and with sector‐scale ice geometric readjustments arising from dispositions in the geography of the landscape. These second order controls produced a stepped deglaciation. The retreat of the British–Irish Ice Sheet is now the world’s most well‐constrained and a valuable data‐rich environment for improving ice‐sheet modelling.

Item Type:Articles
Additional Information:This work was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council consortium grant BRITICE-CHRONO NE/J009768/1 and by the NERC Radiocarbon Facility and the NERC Cosmogenic Isotope Analysis Facility. The project benefited from the PalGlac team of researchers with funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme to CDC (Grant Agreement No. 787263) and supporting SB and AI. JCE acknowledges support from a NERC independent fellowship award (NE/R014574/1). We thank the PISM team of ice-sheet modellers and Evan Gowan for ICESHEET, and note that the development of PISM was supported by NSF grants PLR-1603799 and PLR-1644277 and NASA grant NNX17AG65G. DP acknowledges funding from the Italian PNRA project IPY GLAMAR (grant number 2009/A2.15), and from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement no. 656821 (project SEAGAS).
Status:Published
Refereed:Yes
Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID:Moreton, Dr Steven and Fabel, Dr Derek
Authors: Clark, C. D., Ely, J. C., Hindmarsh, R. C.A., Bradley, S., Ignéczi, A., Fabel, D., Ó Cofaigh, C., Chiverrell, R. C., Scourse, J., Benetti, S., Bradwell, T., Evans, D. J. A., Roberts, D. H., Burke, M., Callard, S. L., Medialdea, A., Saher, M., Small, D., Smedley, R. K., Gasson, E., Gregoire, L., Gandy, N., Hughes, A. L. C., Ballantyne, C., Bateman, M. D., Bigg, G. R., Doole, J., Dove, D., Duller, G. A. T., Jenkins, G. T. H., Livingstone, S. L., McCarron, S., Moreton, S., Pollard, D., Praeg, D., Sejrup, H. P., Van Landeghem, K. J.J., and Wilson, P.
College/School:College of Science and Engineering > Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre
Journal Name:Boreas
Publisher:Wiley
ISSN:0300-9483
ISSN (Online):1502-3885
Published Online:07 September 2022
Copyright Holders:Copyright © 2022 The Authors
First Published:First published in Boreas 51(4): 699-758
Publisher Policy:Reproduced under a Creative Commons license

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