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Originally published in Science Express on 23 June 2005
Science 5 August 2005:
Vol. 309. no. 5736, pp. 925 - 928
DOI: 10.1126/science.1111575
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Reports

Ice Sheet and Solid Earth Influences on Far-Field Sea-Level Histories

Sophie E. Bassett,1 Glenn A. Milne,1* Jerry X. Mitrovica,2 Peter U. Clark3

Previous predictions of sea-level change subsequent to the last glacial maximum show significant, systematic discrepancies between observations at Tahiti, Huon Peninsula, and Sunda Shelf during Lateglacial time (~14,000 to 9000 calibrated years before the present). We demonstrate that a model of glacial isostatic adjustment characterized by both a high-viscosity lower mantle (4 x 1022 Pa s) and a large contribution from the Antarctic ice sheet to meltwater pulse IA (~15-meters eustatic equivalent) resolves these discrepancies. This result supports arguments that an early and rapid Antarctic deglaciation contributed to a sequence of climatic events that ended the most recent glacial period of the current ice age.

1 Department of Earth Sciences, University of Durham, Durham DH1 3LE, UK.
2 Department of Physics, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario M5S 1A7, Canada.
3 Department of Geosciences, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331, USA.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: g.a.milne{at}durham.ac.uk

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
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