Preprints
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-4794
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-4794
08 Oct 2025
 | 08 Oct 2025
Status: this preprint is open for discussion and under review for The Cryosphere (TC).

A thinner-than-present West Antarctic Ice Sheet in the southern Weddell Sea Embayment during the Holocene

David Small, ‪Réka-Hajnalka Fülöp‬, Rachel Smedley, Thomas Lees, Stephan Trabucatti, Derek Fabel, Maria Miguens-Rodriguez, Andrew Smith, and Grant Boeckmann

Abstract. Making accurate measurements and predictions of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet’s (WAIS) contribution to present and future sea-level rise fundamentally depends on knowing its trajectory over the last few thousand years. We present new in situ 14C concentrations from subglacial bedrock cores collected from the southern Weddell Sea sector of the WAIS. Critically, these concentrations are above levels that can be produced under present-day ice thicknesses at the core sites. The cosmogenic nuclide inventories provide clear evidence for the ice sheet being thinner-than present at some point during the Holocene following initial thinning from its Last Glacial Maximum configuration. Forward modelling of nuclide concentrations indicates that the nuclide depth-profiles within our cores are best explained by a 500–3500 year period of (near) total exposure that has occurred since 6–4 ka. We suggest that thinning at our core sites is most likely to reflect a regional, dynamic response to grounding-line retreat rather than a localised change in ice-surface elevation. Our data are the first direct geological evidence for a thinner-than-present WAIS in the Weddell Sea sector and are consistent with Holocene retreat that culminated inboard of present-day limits. Glacio-isostatic adjustment has been inferred as a driving mechanism, causing re-grounding of floating ice and increased buttressing allowing the grounding line to stabilise and readvance. These data allow dynamic retreat-readvance behaviour of this nature to be tested in ice-sheet models, improving predictions of future sea-level rise in this critical sector of West Antarctica.

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David Small, ‪Réka-Hajnalka Fülöp‬, Rachel Smedley, Thomas Lees, Stephan Trabucatti, Derek Fabel, Maria Miguens-Rodriguez, Andrew Smith, and Grant Boeckmann

Status: open (until 19 Nov 2025)

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David Small, ‪Réka-Hajnalka Fülöp‬, Rachel Smedley, Thomas Lees, Stephan Trabucatti, Derek Fabel, Maria Miguens-Rodriguez, Andrew Smith, and Grant Boeckmann
David Small, ‪Réka-Hajnalka Fülöp‬, Rachel Smedley, Thomas Lees, Stephan Trabucatti, Derek Fabel, Maria Miguens-Rodriguez, Andrew Smith, and Grant Boeckmann
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Latest update: 08 Oct 2025
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Short summary
We collected bedrock currently buried by tens of metres of ice from a site in the Weddell Sea Embayment, West Antarctica. Models suggest that the ice sheet here may have been smaller than it is today at some time during the last few thousand years. The presence of rare isotopes in this bedrock requires that ice became thinner before rethickening to its present-day configuration. This fluctuation in the size of the ice sheet occurred within the last 4000 years and may have lasted only 500 years.
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