Abstract
Components of the climate system, such as ice sheets and marine sediments serve as invaluable archives, which can be tapped into, to reconstruct paleoclimate conditions. The relative abundance of hydrogen and oxygen isotopes in ice cores is a proxy for past local temperature evolution. However the translation of these proxies into temperature is not straightforward. Complex interdependencies in the climate system can hide or override the local climate signal at which the ice core was drilled. Using 3D ice sheet modelling in concert with passive tracer advection one can simulate the isotopic distribution in ice sheets and compare them to ice core data. Combining this method in a coupled climate model environment, containing atmosphere and ocean components, one can theoretically simulate the isotopic cycle from the source to the actual ice record. Such an approach would greatly support the interpretation of proxy data whilst constraining the output of 3D ice sheet models (ISMs). We present the implementation of passive tracer advection in our 3D ISM RIMBAY (Thoma et al. in Geosci Model Dev 1:1–21, 2014, Goeller et al. in Cryosphere 7:1095–1106, 2014) and asses the potential of the method to reproduce chronologies of the polar ice sheets.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Arthern RJ, Winebrenner DP, Vaughan DG (2006) Antarctic snow accumulation mapped using polarization of 4.3-cm wavelength microwave emission. J Geophys Res Atmos 111:D06107
Beckmann A, Goosse H (2003) A parameterization of ice shelf-ocean interaction for climate models. Ocean Model 5:157–170
Clarke GKC, Marshall SJ (2002) Isotopic balance of the Greenland ice sheet: modelled concentrations of water isotopes from 30,000 BP to present. Quatern Sci Rev 21:419–430
Cuffey KM, Paterson WSB (2010) The physics of glaciers, vol 4. Elsevier, Oxford
Dansgaard W (1964) Stable isotopes in precipitation. Tellus B 16:436–468
Goeller S, Thoma M, Grosfeld K, Miller H (2014) RIMBAY a balanced water layer concept for subglacial hydrology in large-scale ice sheet models. Cryosphere 7:1095–1106
Goelles T, Grosfeld K, Lohmann G (2014) Semi-lagrangian transport of oxygen isotopes in polythermal ice sheets: implementation and first results. Geoscientific Model Dev 7:1137–1174
Haefeli R (1963) A numerical and experimental method for determining ice motion in the central parts of ice sheets. In: International Association of Scientific Hydrology Publication 61 (General Assembly of Berkeley 1963—Snow and Ice)
Hellmer HH, Kauker F, Timmermann R, Determann J, Rae J (2012) Twenty-first-century warming of a large Antarctic ice-shelf cavity by a redirected coastal current. Nature 485:225–228
Huybrechts P, Payne TA (1996) The EISMINT benchmarks for testing ice-sheet models. Ann Glaciol 23:1–12
Joughin I, Smith BE, Medley B (2014) Marine ice sheet collapse potentially underway for the thwaites glacier basin, West Antarctica. Science 344:735–738
Jouzel J, Alley RB, Cuffey KM, Dansgaard W, Grootes P, Hoffmann G, Johnsen SJ, Koster RD, Peel D, Shuman CA, Stievenard M, Stuiver M, White J (1997) Validity of the temperature reconstruction from water isotopes in ice cores. J Geophys Res Oceans 102:26471–26487
Le Brocq AM, Payne AJ, Vieli A (2010) An improved antarctic dataset for high resolution numerical ice sheet models (ALBMAP v1). Earth Syst Sci Data 2:247–260
Lhomme N, Clarke GKC, Marshall SJ (2005) Tracer transport in the Greenland ice sheet: three-dimensional isotopic stratigraphy. Quatern Sci Rev 24:155–171
Nye JF (1963) Correction factor for accumulation measured by the thickness of the annual layers in an ice sheet. J Glaciol 4:785–788
Pattyn F (2003) A new three-dimensional higher-order thermomechanical ice sheet model: basic sensitivity, ice stream development, and ice flow across subglacial lakes. J Geophys Res Solid Earth 108:2156–2202
Rybak O, Huybrechts P (2003) A comparison of Eulerian and Lagrangian methods for dating in numerical ice-sheet models. Ann Glaciol 37:150–158
Stepanek C, Lohmann G (2012) Modelling mid-Pliocene climate with COSMOS. Geosci Model Dev 5:1221–1243
Thoma M, Grosfeld K, Barbi D, Determann J, Goeller S, Mayer C, Pattyn F (2014) RIMBAY a multi-approximation 3D ice-dynamics model for comprehensive applications: model description and examples. Geosci Model Dev 1:1–21
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Sutter, J., Thoma, M., Lohmann, G. (2015). Integration of Passive Tracers in a Three-Dimensional Ice Sheet Model. In: Lohmann, G., Meggers, H., Unnithan, V., Wolf-Gladrow, D., Notholt, J., Bracher, A. (eds) Towards an Interdisciplinary Approach in Earth System Science. Springer Earth System Sciences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-13865-7_18
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-13865-7_18
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-13864-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-13865-7
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)