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SUMMARY:The Little Ice Age in sea-level records across the North Atlantic 
 -  Dr Leanne Wake (Northumbria University)
DTSTART:20140626T130000Z
DTEND:20140626T140000Z
UID:TALK51472@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Rosie Williams
DESCRIPTION:Relative sea level data\, such as those gained from salt marsh
 es provide important insights into sea level change over centennial and mu
 lti decadal time periods\, spanning the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ic
 e Age.   This presentation explores the regional changes in sea-level expe
 rienced across the North Atlantic\, specifically Greenland\, and attempts 
 to interpret and constrain the contributions in terms of local and regiona
 l ice sheet mass balance and thermo- and halosteric changes in sea-level. 
 \n\nDuring the period spanning the MWP and the LIA\, reconstructions of ce
 ntury-scale relative sea-level (RSL) extracted from salt marsh deposits in
  Greenland reveal that the century-scale RSL trends differ significantly t
 o millennial-scale trends inferred from isolation basin data in their resp
 ective areas. At sites in west Greenland RSL rise slows from ~3 mm/yr to ~
 0 mm/yr at ~1600AD. Further south\, at Nanortalik\, the sea level continue
 s to rise until ~ 200 years before present after which the sea-level slows
  by ~ 3mm/yr. At Pakitsoq\, salt marsh records show a slowdown in sea-leve
 l rise during the mid 19th century\, coinciding with retreat of nearby Jak
 obshavn Isbrae\, a major ice stream draining 7% of the Greenland Ice Sheet
 .\n\nLarge contributions to sea-level change from steric changes and cryos
 pheric sources outside of Greenland are ruled out as major drivers of this
  deceleration in sea-level fall. Very little is known about the detailed r
 egional climate and mass balance of the Greenland Ice Sheet during the Med
 ieval Warm Period (MWP) and the Little Ice Age (LIA) but model sensitivity
  tests indicate that regional changes in ice thick- ness related to surfac
 e mass balance changes can explain the observed RSL signals but only if th
 ere is dominant mass loss during the period 400 years BP to present. Howev
 er\, it is plausible that some of the RSL fall may be due to reduced accum
 ulation at the onset of the Little Ice Age. A high resolution mass balance
  history of the Greenland Ice Sheet over the past few millennia and the in
 fluence of lateral Earth structure on predictions of RSL change are identi
 fied as priority areas of study in order to confidently separate local\, 
 ‘transient’ (e.g. elastic and gravitational) RSL changes from the long
 -term viscous contribution associated primarily with deglacial changes.\n
LOCATION:British Antarctic Survey\, Room 187
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