A model of late Pleistocene ice sheet growth with realistic geography and simplified cryodynamics and geodynamics

Abstract

A global two-dimensional one-level seasonal energy-balance model is asynchronously coupled to vertically integrated ice-flow models (which depend both on latitude and longitude) to study the response of the atmosphere-ocean-cryosphere-lithosphere system to solar forcing for the last ice age cycle of the late Pleistocene. The model simulates the position of the North American and European ice sheet complexes at the last glacial maximum satisfactorily. Both the geographic distributions of the ice volumes delivered by the model and their masses are a reasonable approximation to those inferred on the basis of relative sea level data (Tushingham and Peltier 1990). The sensitivity of the coupled model over the last glacial-interglacial cycle to solar forcing is nevertheless low, which suggests that further physical mechanisms will have to be added to the model (such as explicit basal sliding and ice shelves which would respond to sea-level variations and therefore permit marine incursions), if it is to adequately simulate the terminations that control the 10⁵ year ice age cycle. One should also incorporate long-term variations of the greenhouse gases (Manabe et al. 1985b).