- 1British Antarctic Survey, High Cross, Cambridge CB3 0ET, UK (jankat@bas.ac.uk)
- 2Department of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge, CB2 3EQ, UK
- 3National Physical Laboratory, Hampton Road, Teddington TW11 0LW, UK
- 4Université Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, INRAE, IRD, Grenoble INP, IGE, 38000 Grenoble, France
The West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS), holding close to five metres sea level equivalent of ice, has long been considered one of the major tipping elements in the Earth’s climate system. A recent study suggests that WAIS is perhaps one of the most decisive elements in this system as well (Wang et al., 2023). Total Air Content (TAC) data (a proxy for ice sheet elevation) from the Skytrain Ice Rise ice core (~79°S, 078°W, 784 m altitude) shows rapid elevation changes of around 100 m within decadal timescales around 8,000 years ago at this site (Grieman et al.,2024), which provides strong evidence towards the vulnerability of this region and the need to understand its past behaviour in high spatial and temporal resolution.
Here, we present a complete record of TAC during the Holocene from the Fletcher Promontory ice core (~78°S, 082°W, 873 m altitude) located around 220 km from the Skytrain Ice Rise site. The record covers the entire Holocene until ~11,000 years BP, measured on a high-accuracy TAC system. Using the two records from Skytrain Ice Rise and Fletcher Promontory, the long-term trends and offsets in this region during the Holocene are investigated. The reliability of the TAC data and the robustness of our measurement system are also discussed, along with implications for WAIS and possible future studies.
Wang, S. et al: Mechanisms and Impacts of Earth System Tipping Elements. Reviews of Geophysics 61, 1 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1029/2021RG000757
Grieman, M.M., Nehrbass-Ahles, C., Hoffmann, H.M. et al.: Abrupt Holocene ice loss due to thinning and ungrounding in the Weddell Sea Embayment. Nat. Geosci. 17, 227–232 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-024-01375-8
How to cite: Venkatesh, J., King, A., Chapman, K., Miller, S., Nehrbass-Ahles, C., Mulvaney, R., Wolff, E., Faïn, X., Capron, E., and Bauska, T.: Placing the Weddell Sea Holocene elevation drop in context: New records of total air content from Fletcher Promontory and Skytrain Ice Rise, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-20335, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-20335, 2025.
