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Publication Abstracts

Carlson et al. 2008

Carlson, A.E., A.N. LeGrande, D.W. Oppo, R.E. Came, G.A. Schmidt, F.S. Anslow, J.M. Licciardi, and E.A. Obbink, 2008: Rapid early Holocene deglaciation of the Laurentide ice sheet. Nat. Geosci., 1, 620-624, doi:10.1038/ngeo285.

The demise of the Laurentide ice sheet during the early Holocene epoch is the most recent andbest constrained disappearance of a large ice sheet in the Northern Hemisphere, and thus allows an assessment of rates of ice-sheet decay as well as attendant contributions to sea level rise. Here, we use terrestrial and marine records of the deglaciation to identify two periods of rapid melting during the final demise of the Laurentide ice sheet, when melting ice contributed about 1.3 and 0.7 cm of sea level rise per year, respectively. Our simulations with a fully coupled ocean-atmosphere model suggest that increased ablation due to enhanced early Holocene boreal summer insolation was the predominant cause of Laurentide ice-sheet retreat. Although the surface radiative forcing in boreal summer during the early Holocene is twice as large as the greenhouse-gas forcing expected by the year 2100, the associated increase in summer surface air temperatures is very similar. We conclude that our geologic evidence for a rapid retreat of the Laurentide ice sheet may therefore describe a prehistoric precedent for mass balance changes of the Greenland ice sheet over the coming century.

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BibTeX Citation

@article{ca02910j,
  author={Carlson, A. E. and LeGrande, A. N. and Oppo, D. W. and Came, R. E. and Schmidt, G. A. and Anslow, F. S. and Licciardi, J. M. and Obbink, E. A.},
  title={Rapid early Holocene deglaciation of the Laurentide ice sheet},
  year={2008},
  journal={Nature Geoscience},
  volume={1},
  pages={620--624},
  doi={10.1038/ngeo285},
}

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RIS Citation

TY  - JOUR
ID  - ca02910j
AU  - Carlson, A. E.
AU  - LeGrande, A. N.
AU  - Oppo, D. W.
AU  - Came, R. E.
AU  - Schmidt, G. A.
AU  - Anslow, F. S.
AU  - Licciardi, J. M.
AU  - Obbink, E. A.
PY  - 2008
TI  - Rapid early Holocene deglaciation of the Laurentide ice sheet
JA  - Nat. Geosci.
JO  - Nature Geoscience
VL  - 1
SP  - 620
EP  - 624
DO  - 10.1038/ngeo285
ER  -

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