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Global change

Ice sheets by volume

Nature volume 406, pages 689–690 (2000)Cite this article

In 1840, Louis Agassiz proposed that vast ice sheets had once covered large areas of northern Europe and North America. Since then, geologists, geophysicists and geochemists have argued about the spatial extent and volume of the ice during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) around 21,000 years ago.

On page 713 of this issue, Yokoyama et al.1 present evidence that puts a firm figure on ice volume at the LGM. Growth of continental ice lowers global sea level (referred to as glacio-eustatic sea level), so records of sea-level change can be used to reconstruct changes in ice volume. Using new records from the continental shelf off northern Australia, Yokoyama et al.1 estimate that, during the LGM, the sea level was 130–135 m lower than it is now. From this value, they calculate that the LGM ice volume was (52 ± 2) × 106 km3 more than the present volume of 32 × 106 km3. In combination with other data, this information can be used to address the interplay between ice sheets, the climate system and the solid Earth.

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Figure 1: Sea-level estimates for 25,000–10,000 years ago compared to marine oxygen isotope and atmospheric CO2 records.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geosciences Oregon State University, Corvallis, 97331, Oregon, USA

    Peter U. Clark

  2. College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences, Oregon State University, Corvallis, 97331, Oregon , USA

    Alan C. Mix

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  1. Peter U. Clark
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  2. Alan C. Mix
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Correspondence to Peter U. Clark or Alan C. Mix.

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Clark, P., Mix, A. Ice sheets by volume. Nature 406, 689–690 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/35021176

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