HR: 15:25h
AN: PP43C-08 INVITED     [Abstracts]
TI: Did Plio-Pleistocene Warm Events Cause Destabilization of Ice Sheets, or Vice-Versa?
AU: * Oglesby, R J
EM: robert.j.oglesby@nasa.gov
AF: NASA/MSFC, 320 Sparkman Dr., Huntsville, AL 35805 United States
AB: It is by now well-known that short duration, apparently global warm events occurred during the Pliocene and early Pleistocene. Emerging evidence also suggests major changes in the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets concurrent with these warm events. In this presentation I will explore physical processes and mechanisms at play, and argue that rather than thinking of the warm events as causing destabilization of the ice sheets, it is just as likely that changes in the ice sheets themselves account, at least in part, for the global signals we interpret as `warm events'. That is, I will argue that a dynamical system approach is necessary to understand how these warm events came to be, and what, if any, the implications are for the future behavior of the ice sheets. Some possible hypotheses will be explored, involving the linked effects of such factors as changes in greenhouse gases, sea ice, ocean circulation, and continental-scale ice sheets.
DE: 0726 Ice sheets
DE: 1605 Abrupt/rapid climate change (4901, 8408)
DE: 1620 Climate dynamics (0429, 3309)
DE: 3344 Paleoclimatology (0473, 4900)
SC: Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology [PP]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005