To see how fast sea level may rise in the future, Carlson and his team looked to the ancient Laurentide ice sheet, which stretched as far south as Ohio and New York City during at the peak of the last Ice Age 20,000 years ago. By 9,000 years ago, the ice sheet had retreated to Wisconsin and upstate New York near the Saint Lawrence River. Over the next 500 years it melted away even more, leaving behind boulders and new plant life. The team picked up these bread crumbs from the glacier's trail and analyzed them to figure out how quickly the ice melted, and how much the climate must have warmed. "We got about 2 to 4 degrees Centigrade of warming in the summer," Carlson said. "Very similar to IPCC projections," for climate change by the end of the 21st century. The team's study was published this week in the journal Nature Geoscience. Mark Siddall of the University of Bristol in the United Kindgom said the study shows that ice sheets can respond much faster to warming climate than anyone ever guessed. "You have all these old-school ice sheet modelers saying 'You can't have fast responses of ice sheets,'" Siddall said. "The take-home message here is: Oh yes you can, and in climate conditions that are at least similar to today's." Related Links: Discovery News blog: Strike Slip Discovery News blog: Earth Impacts |
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