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Understanding feedbacks between the Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) and the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is crucial for reducing uncertainties over future sea level and ocean circulation change. Reconstructing past GrIS dynamics can extend the observational record and elucidate mechanisms that operate on multi-decadal timescales. We report a highly-constrained last glacial vertical profile of cosmogenic isotope exposure ages from Sermilik Fjord, a marine-terminating ice stream in the southeast sector of the GrIS. Our reconstruction reveals substantial ice-mass loss throughout the Younger Dryas (12.9-11.7 ka), a period of marked atmospheric and sea-surface cooling. Earth-system modelling reveals that southern GrIS marginal melt was likely driven by strengthening of the Irminger Current at depth due to a weakening of the AMOC during the Younger Dryas. This change in North Atlantic circulation appears to have drawn warm subsurface waters to southeast Greenland despite markedly cooler sea surface temperatures, enhancing thermal erosion at the grounding lines of palaeo ice-streams, supporting interpretation of regional marine-sediment cores. Given current rates of GrIS meltwater input into the North Atlantic and the vulnerability of major ice streams to water temperature changes at the grounding line, this mechanism has important implications for future AMOC changes and northern hemisphere heat transport.

Outlet glaciers grounded on a bed that deepens inland and extends below sea level are potentially vulnerable to ‘marine ice sheet instability’. This instability, which may lead to runaway ice loss, has been simulated in models, but its consequences have not been directly observed in geological records. Here we provide new surface-exposure ages from an outlet of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet that reveal rapid glacier thinning occurred approximately 7,000 years ago, in the absence of large environmental changes. Glacier thinning persisted for more than two and a half centuries, resulting in hundreds of metres of ice loss. Numerical simulations indicate that ice surface drawdown accelerated when the otherwise steadily retreating glacier encountered a bedrock trough. Together, the geological reconstruction and numerical simulations suggest that centennial-scale glacier thinning arose from unstable grounding line retreat. Capturing these instability processes in ice sheet models is important for predicting Antarctica’s future contribution to sea level change., Nature Communications, 6, ISSN:2041-1723

Recent paleoclimate reconstructions have challenged the traditional view that Northern Hemisphere insolation and associated feedbacks drove synchronous global climate and ice-sheet volume during the last glacial cycle. Here we focus on the response of the Patagonian Ice Sheet, and demonstrate that its maximum expansion culminated at 28,400 ± 500 years before present (28.4 ± 0.5 ka), more than 5,000 years before the minima in 65°N summer insolation and the formally-defined Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) at 21,000 ± 2,000 years before present. To investigate the potential drivers of this early LGM (eLGM), we simulate the effects of orbital changes using a suite of climate models incorporating prescribed and evolving sea-ice anomalies. Our analyses suggest that Antarctic seaice expansion at 28.5 ka altered the location and intensity of the Southern Hemisphere storm track, triggering regional cooling over Patagonia of 5°C that extends across the wider mid-southern latitudes. In contrast, at the LGM, continued sea-ice expansion reduced regional temperature and precipitation further, effectively starving the ice sheet and resulting in reduced glacial expansion. Our findings highlight the dominant role that orbital changes can play in driving Southern Hemisphere glacial climate via the sensitivity of mid-latitude regions to changes in Antarctic sea-ice extent. The Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) – traditionally defined from sea level records as having taken place between 23,000 and 19,000 calendar years ago – was apparently driven by insolation changes at 65°N 1,2 , and reflects the period when the world’s ice sheets reached their maximum extents, locking up the greatest volume of ocean water 1 . However, as sea level is an integrated signal, it cannot be used to distinguish globally synchronous ice-sheet maxima from the variable regional ice sheet maxima that may provide critical insights into the mechanisms of regional and hemispheric climate change.

During the last glacial termination, the upwelling strength of the southern polar limb of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation varied, changing the ventilation and stratification of the high-latitude Southern Ocean. During the same period, at least two phases of abrupt global sea-level rise--meltwater pulses--took place. Although the timing and magnitude of these events have become better constrained, a causal link between ocean stratification, the meltwater pulses and accelerated ice loss from Antarctica has not been proven. Here we simulate Antarctic ice sheet evolution over the last 25 kyr using a data-constrained ice-sheet model forced by changes in Southern Ocean temperature from an Earth system model. Results reveal several episodes of accelerated ice-sheet recession, the largest being coincident with meltwater pulse 1A. This resulted from reduced Southern Ocean overturning following Heinrich Event 1, when warmer subsurface water thermally eroded grounded marine-based ice and instigated a positive feedback that further accelerated ice-sheet retreat.