Kirkham, J.D. orcid.org/0000-0002-0506-1625, Hogan, K.A. orcid.org/0000-0002-1256-8010, Larter, R.D. orcid.org/0000-0002-8414-7389 et al. (13 more authors) (2025) Change in iceberg calving behavior preceded North Sea ice shelf disintegration during the last deglaciation. Nature Communications, 16 (1). 3184. ISSN 2041-1723
Abstract
Understanding how regime shifts in iceberg calving behavior affect ice shelf stability remains a challenge for numerical models. This is an important question as we consider the fate of the ice shelves that currently buttress the Antarctic Ice Sheet and hold back the bulk of its potential upstream sea-level contribution. Using buried landforms, we demonstrate that ice shelves fringed the former British-Irish Ice Sheet (BIIS) and document their disintegration ~18,000 years ago. The ice shelves produced massive (5–10 s km wide, 50–180 m thick) tabular icebergs until widespread ice shelf break-up shifted the calving regime to smaller bergs; a change that coincided with the collapse of marine-based ice across the central North Sea. We propose that the BIIS reached a climatic threshold around 18 ka which caused massive surface melting of its ice shelves, triggering hydrofracturing of crevasses that ultimately led to their disintegration and likely enhanced ice-retreat rates.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The author(s) 2025. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
Keywords: | Cryospheric science; Geophysics; Projection and prediction |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > School of Geography and Planning |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 30 Apr 2025 15:40 |
Last Modified: | 30 Apr 2025 15:40 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Springer Science and Business Media LLC |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1038/s41467-025-58304-5 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:225952 |