Meltwater pulse 1B (MWP1b) is the name used by Quaternary geologists, paleoclimatologists, and oceanographers for a period of either rapid or just accelerated post-glacial sea level rise that some hypothesize to have occurred between 11,500 and 11,200 calendar years ago at the beginning of the Holocene and after the end of the Younger Dryas. [1] Meltwater pulse 1B is also known as catastrophic rise event 2 (CRE2) in the Caribbean Sea. [2]
Other named, postglacial meltwater pulses are known most commonly as meltwater pulse 1A0 (meltwater pulse19ka), meltwater pulse 1A, meltwater pulse 1C, meltwater pulse 1D, and meltwater pulse 2. It and these other periods of proposed rapid sea level rise are known as meltwater pulses because the inferred cause of them was the rapid release of meltwater into the oceans from the collapse of continental ice sheets. [1]
There is considerable unresolved disagreement over the significance, timing, magnitude, and even existence of meltwater pulse 1B. It was first recognized by Richard G Fairbanks in his coral reef studies in Barbados. From the analysis of data from cores of coral reefs surrounding Barbados, he concluded that during meltwater pulse 1B, sea level rose 28 meters (92 ft) in about 500 years about 11,300 calendar years ago. [3]
However, in 1996 and 2010, Bard and others published detailed analysis of data from cores from coral reefs surrounding Tahiti. They concluded that meltwater pulse 1B was, at best, just an acceleration of sea level rise at about 11,300 calendar years ago and it was, at worst, not statistically different from a constant rate sea level rise between 11,500 and 10,200 calendar years ago. They argued that meltwater pulse 1B was certainly not an abrupt jump in sea level, which they would consider to be a meltwater pulse. They argue that the 28-meter (92 ft) rise in sea level estimated by Fairbanks from cores is an artifact created by differential tectonic uplift between different sides of a tectonic structure lying between the two Barbados cores used to identify meltwater pulse 1B and calculate its magnitude. [4] [5]
Other differing estimates about the magnitude of meltwater pulse 1B have been published. In 2010, Standford and others found it to be "robustly expressed" as a multi-millennial interval of enhanced rates of sea-level rise between 11,500 and 8,800 calendar years ago with peak rates of rise of up to 25 mm/yr. [6] In 2004, Liu and Milliman reexamined the original data from Barbados and Tahiti and reconsidered the mechanics and sedimentology of reef drowning by sea level rise. They concluded that meltwater pulse 1B occurred between 11,500 and 11,200 calendar years ago, a 300-calendar year interval, during which sea level rose 13 meters (43 ft) from −58 meters (−190 ft) to −45 meters (−148 ft), giving a mean annual rate of around 40mm/yr [7] Other studies have revised the estimated magnitude of meltwater pulse 1B downward to between 7.5 meters (25 ft) and less than 6 meters (20 ft). [2] [8]
Given the disagreement over its timing, magnitude, and even existence, it has been very difficult to constrain the source of meltwater pulse 1B. In his modeling of global glacial isostatic adjustment, Peltier assumed that the predominant source for MWP-1B was the Antarctic Ice Sheet. However, no justification for this assumption is provided in his papers. [9] [10] In addition, Leventer and others argue that the timing of deglaciation in eastern Antarctica roughly coincides with the onset of meltwater pulse 1B and the Antarctic Ice Sheet is a likely source. [11] Finally, McKay and others suggested that recession of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet may have supplied the meltwater needed to the start meltwater pulse 1B. [12]
However, later studies involving the surface exposure dating of glacial erratics, nunataks, and other formerly glaciated exposures using cosmogenic dating contradicted the above arguments and assumptions. [13] These studies tentatively concluded that the actual amount of thinning of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet is too small, 50 to 200 meters (160 to 660 ft), and likely too gradual and too late to have contributed any significant amount of meltwater to meltwater pulse 1B. They also concluded that the ice sheet retreat and thinning accelerated for the West Antarctic Ice Sheet only after 7,000 calendar years ago. [13] Although other researchers have concluded that the abrupt decay of the Laurentide Ice Sheet might have been sufficient to have been responsible for meltwater pulse 1B, its sources remain an unresolved mystery. [13] For example, recent research in West Antarctica found that sufficient deglaciation contemporaneous with meltwater pulse 1B occurred to readily explain this rapid period of global sea level rise. [14]
A variety of paleoclimate and paleohydrologic proxies, which can be used to reconstruct the prehistoric discharge of the Mississippi River, can be found in the sediments of the Louisiana continental shelf and slope, including the Orca and Pygmy basins, within the Gulf of Mexico. [15] [16] These proxies have been used by Quaternary geologists, paleoclimatologists, and oceanographers to reconstruct both the duration and discharge the mouth of the prehistoric Mississippi River for the Late glacial and postglacial periods, including the time of meltwater pulse 1B. [17] [18] [19] [20] The chronology of flooding events found by the study of cores on the Louisiana continental shelf and slope are in agreement with the timing of meltwater pulses. For example, meltwater pulse 1A in the Barbados coral record matches quite well with a group of two separate Mississippi River meltwater flood events, MWF-3 (12,600 radiocarbon years ago) and MWF-4 (11,900 radiocarbon years ago). In addition, meltwater pulse 1B in the Barbados coral record matches a cluster of four Mississippi River superflood events, MWF-5, that occurred between 9,900 and 9,100 radiocarbon years ago. In 2003, Aharon reported that flood event MWF-5 consists of four separate and distinct superfloods at 9,970-9,870; 9,740-9,660; 9,450-9,290; and 9,160-8,900 radiocarbon years ago. [18] The discharge at the mouth of the Mississippi River during three of the four superfloods of MWF-5 is estimated to have varied between 0.07 and 0.08 sverdrups (million cubic meters per second). The superflood at 9450-9290 radiocarbon years ago is estimated to have had a discharge of 0.10 sverdrups (million cubic meters per second). [18] This research also shows that the Mississippi superfloods of MWF-5 occurred during the Preboreal. The same research found an absence of either meltwater floods or superfloods discharging into the Gulf of Mexico from the Mississippi River during the preceding thousand years, which is known as the cessation event, that corresponds with the Younger Dryas stadial. [15] [16] [18]
The Pleistocene deposits blanketing the Louisiana Continental shelf and slope between the mouth of the Mississippi River and Orca and Pygmy basins largely consist of sediments transported down the Mississippi River mixed with variable additions of local biologically generated carbonate. Because of this, the provenance of the meltwater and superfloods can be readily inferred from the sediment's composition. The composition of the sediments brought into the Gulf of Mexico and deposited on the Louisiana continental shelf and slope during the superfloods of MWF-5 reflect an abrupt change in mineralogy, fossil content, organic matter, and amount after 12,900 calendar years ago at the start of the Younger Dryas interval.
First, after 12,900 calendar years ago, smectite-rich sediments from the Missouri River drainage are progressively and quickly replaced by sediments, which are associated with the Great Lakes region and further south along the Mississippi River, as indicated by their clay mineralogy. Second, after 12,900 calendar years ago, the overall quantity of sediment being transported down the Mississippi River abruptly decreases with a corresponding and significantly increased proportion of locally produced biologically generated carbonate and organic matter. Third, after 12,900 calendar years ago, various analyses, e.g. C/N ratio and Rock–Eval Pyrolysis, indicate that the type of organic matter present changes from organic matter that was reworked from old formations by glacials to well-preserved Holocene organic matter that is mainly of marine origin. Finally, after 12,900 calendar years ago, the presence of reworked nannofossils disappear from sediments accumulating on the Louisiana continental shelf and slope. [21] [22]
The above noted changes in the nature of accumulating sediments indicate that after the start of the Younger Dryas, the southern route for Laurentide Ice Sheet meltwater was largely blocked. On the rare occasions it could flow southward, glacial meltwater flowed through Lake Agassiz and sometimes the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River. As the water moved through either Lake Agassiz or other proglacial lakes, they completely trapped and removed any glacial outwash and the older, reworked organic material and reworked nannofossils that the outwash contained. As a result, the sediment carried by the Mississippi River after the start of the Younger Dryas consisted of illite and chlorite enriched sediments from the Great Lakes region that lacked any reworked nannofossils. These changes argue that the superfloods of MWF-5 which fed Meltwater Pulse B are related to either rare periods of southerly discharge of meltwater through Lake Agassiz, nonglacial periods of climate-enhanced discharge within the Mississippi River Basin, or a combination of both. [21] [22]
In case of the Antarctic Ice Sheet, an equivalent well-dated, high-resolution record of the discharge of icebergs from various parts of the Antarctic Ice Sheet for the past 20,000 calendar years is also available. Research by Weber and others constructed a record from variations in the amount of iceberg-rafted debris versus time and other environmental proxies in two cores taken from the ocean bottom within Iceberg Alley of the Weddell Sea. The cores of ocean bottom sediments within Iceberg Alley provide a spatially integrated signal of the variability of the discharge of icebergs into the marine waters by the Antarctic Ice Sheet because it is a confluence zone in which icebergs calved from the entire Antarctic Ice Sheet drift along currents, converge, and exit the Weddell Sea to the north into the Scotia Sea. [23]
Between 20,000 and 9,000 calendar years ago, Weber and others documented eight well-defined periods of increased iceberg calving and discharge from various parts of the Antarctic Ice Sheet. Five of these periods, AID5 through AID2 (Antarctic Iceberg Discharge events), are comparable in duration and have a repeat time of about 800–900 calendar years. The largest of the Antarctic Iceberg Discharge events is AID2. Its peak intensity at about 11,300 calendar years ago, which is synchronous with meltwater pulse 1B in the Barbados sea-level record, is consistent with a significant Antarctic contribution to meltwater pulse 1B. The lack of a sea level response in the Tahiti coral record might indicate a regionally specific sea-level response to a deglaciation event only from the Pacific sector of the Antarctica Ice Sheet. [23]
The Younger Dryas (YD) was a period in Earth's geologic history that occurred circa 12,900 to 11,700 years Before Present (BP). It is primarily known for the sudden or "abrupt" cooling in the Northern Hemisphere, when the North Atlantic Ocean cooled and annual air temperatures decreased by ~3 °C (5.4 °F) over North America, 2–6 °C (3.6–10.8 °F) in Europe and up to 10 °C (18 °F) in Greenland, in a manner of decades. Cooling in Greenland was particularly rapid, taking place over just 3 years or less. At the same time, the Southern Hemisphere had experienced warming. This period ended as rapidly as it began, with dramatic warming over ~50 years, which had transitioned the Earth from the glacial Pleistocene epoch into the current Holocene.
Lake Agassiz was a large proglacial lake that existed in central North America during the late Pleistocene, fed by meltwater from the retreating Laurentide Ice Sheet at the end of the last glacial period. At its peak, the lake's area was larger than all of the modern Great Lakes combined. It eventually drained into what is now Hudson Bay, leaving behind Lake Winnipeg, Lake Winnipegosis, Lake Manitoba, and Lake of the Woods.
A jökulhlaup is a type of glacial outburst flood. It is an Icelandic term that has been adopted in glaciological terminology in many languages. It originally referred to the well-known subglacial outburst floods from Vatnajökull, Iceland, which are triggered by geothermal heating and occasionally by a volcanic subglacial eruption, but it is now used to describe any large and abrupt release of water from a subglacial or proglacial lake/reservoir.
The Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), also referred to as the Last Glacial Coldest Period, was the most recent time during the Last Glacial Period where ice sheets were at their greatest extent 26,000 and 20,000 years ago. Ice sheets covered much of Northern North America, Northern Europe, and Asia and profoundly affected Earth's climate by causing a major expansion of deserts, along with a large drop in sea levels.
The Laurentide ice sheet was a massive sheet of ice that covered millions of square miles, including most of Canada and a large portion of the Northern United States, multiple times during the Quaternary glacial epochs, from 2.58 million years ago to the present.
A Heinrich event is a natural phenomenon in which large groups of icebergs break off from the Laurentide ice sheet and traverse the Hudson Strait into the North Atlantic. First described by marine geologist Hartmut Heinrich, they occurred during five of the last seven glacial periods over the past 640,000 years. Heinrich events are particularly well documented for the last glacial period but notably absent from the penultimate glaciation. The icebergs contained rock mass that had been eroded by the glaciers, and as they melted, this material was dropped to the sea floor as ice rafted debris forming deposits called Heinrich layers.
The Holocene glacial retreat is a geographical phenomenon that involved the global retreat of glaciers (deglaciation) that previously had advanced during the Last Glacial Maximum. Ice sheet retreat initiated ca. 19,000 years ago and accelerated after ca. 15,000 years ago. The Holocene, starting with abrupt warming 11,700 years ago, resulted in rapid melting of the remaining ice sheets of North America and Europe.
A tunnel valley is a U-shaped valley originally cut under the glacial ice near the margin of continental ice sheets such as that now covering Antarctica and formerly covering portions of all continents during past glacial ages. They can be as long as 100 km (62 mi), 4 km (2.5 mi) wide, and 400 m (1,300 ft) deep.
Meltwater pulse 1A (MWP1a) is the name used by Quaternary geologists, paleoclimatologists, and oceanographers for a period of rapid post-glacial sea level rise, between 13,500 and 14,700 calendar years ago, during which the global sea level rose between 16 meters (52 ft) and 25 meters (82 ft) in about 400–500 years, giving mean rates of roughly 40–60 mm (0.13–0.20 ft)/yr. Meltwater pulse 1A is also known as catastrophic rise event 1 (CRE1) in the Caribbean Sea. The rates of sea level rise associated with meltwater pulse 1A are the highest known rates of post-glacial, eustatic sea level rise. Meltwater pulse 1A is also the most widely recognized and least disputed of the named, postglacial meltwater pulses. Other named, postglacial meltwater pulses are known most commonly as meltwater pulse 1A0, meltwater pulse 1B, meltwater pulse 1C, meltwater pulse 1D, and meltwater pulse 2. It and these other periods of rapid sea level rise are known as meltwater pulses because the inferred cause of them was the rapid release of meltwater into the oceans from the collapse of continental ice sheets.
Meltwater is water released by the melting of snow or ice, including glacial ice, tabular icebergs and ice shelves over oceans. Meltwater is often found during early spring when snow packs and frozen rivers melt with rising temperatures, and in the ablation zone of glaciers where the rate of snow cover is reducing. Meltwater can be produced during volcanic eruptions, in a similar way in which the more dangerous lahars form. It can also be produced by the heat generated by the flow itself.
The Bølling–Allerød Interstadial, also called the Late Glacial Interstadial (LGI), was an interstadial period which occurred from 14,690 to c. 12,890 years Before Present, during the final stages of the Last Glacial Period. It was defined by abrupt warming in the Northern Hemisphere, and a corresponding cooling in the Southern Hemisphere, as well as a period of major ice sheet collapse and corresponding sea level rise known as Meltwater pulse 1A. This period was named after two sites in Denmark where paleoclimate evidence for it was first found, in the form of vegetation fossils that could have only survived during a comparatively warm period in Northern Europe. It is also referred to as Interstadial 1 or Dansgaard–Oeschger event 1.
In climatology, the 8.2-kiloyear event was a sudden decrease in global temperatures that occurred approximately 8,200 years before the present, or c. 6,200 BC, and which lasted for the next two to four centuries. It defines the start of the Northgrippian age in the Holocene epoch. The cooling was significantly less pronounced than during the Younger Dryas cold period that preceded the beginning of the Holocene. During the event, atmospheric methane concentration decreased by 80 ppb, an emission reduction of 15%, by cooling and drying at a hemispheric scale.
The Weichselian glaciation was the last glacial period and its associated glaciation in northern parts of Europe. In the Alpine region it corresponds to the Würm glaciation. It was characterized by a large ice sheet that spread out from the Scandinavian Mountains and extended as far as the east coast of Schleswig-Holstein, northern Poland and Northwest Russia. This glaciation is also known as the Weichselian ice age, Vistulian glaciation, Weichsel or, less commonly, the Weichsel glaciation, Weichselian cold period (Weichsel-Kaltzeit), Weichselian glacial (Weichsel-Glazial), Weichselian Stage or, rarely, the Weichselian complex (Weichsel-Komplex).
An urstromtal is a type of broad glacial valley, for example, in northern Central Europe, that appeared during the ice ages, or individual glacial periods of an ice age, at the edge of the Scandinavian ice sheet and was formed by meltwaters that flowed more or less parallel to the ice margin. Urstromtäler are an element of the glacial series. The term is German and means "ancient stream valley". Although often translated as "glacial valley", it should not be confused with a valley carved out by a glacier. More accurately some sources call them "meltwater valleys" or "ice-marginal valleys".
Deglaciation is the transition from full glacial conditions during ice ages, to warm interglacials, characterized by global warming and sea level rise due to change in continental ice volume. Thus, it refers to the retreat of a glacier, an ice sheet or frozen surface layer, and the resulting exposure of the Earth's surface. The decline of the cryosphere due to ablation can occur on any scale from global to localized to a particular glacier. After the Last Glacial Maximum, the last deglaciation begun, which lasted until the early Holocene. Around much of Earth, deglaciation during the last 100 years has been accelerating as a result of climate change, partly brought on by anthropogenic changes to greenhouse gases.
The phenomenon of paleoflooding is apparent in the geologic record over various spatial and temporal scales. It often occurred on a large scale, and was the result of either glacial ice melt causing large outbursts of freshwater, or high sea levels breaching bodies of freshwater. If a freshwater outflow event was large enough that the water reached the ocean system, it caused changes in salinity that potentially affected ocean circulation and global climate. Freshwater flows could also accumulate to form continental glacial lakes, and this is another indicator of large-scale flooding. In contrast, periods of high global sea level could cause marine water to breach natural dams and flow into bodies of freshwater. Changes in salinity of freshwater and marine bodies can be detected from the analysis of organisms that inhabited those bodies at a given time, as certain organisms are more suited to live in either fresh or saline conditions.
Global or eustatic sea level has fluctuated significantly over Earth's history. The main factors affecting sea level are the amount and volume of available water and the shape and volume of the ocean basins. The primary influences on water volume are the temperature of the seawater, which affects density, and the amounts of water retained in other reservoirs like rivers, aquifers, lakes, glaciers, polar ice caps and sea ice. Over geological timescales, changes in the shape of the oceanic basins and in land/sea distribution affect sea level. In addition to eustatic changes, local changes in sea level are caused by the earth's crust uplift and subsidence.
The early Holocene sea level rise (EHSLR) was a significant jump in sea level by about 60 m (197 ft) during the early Holocene, between about 12,000 and 7,000 years ago, spanning the Eurasian Mesolithic. The rapid rise in sea level and associated climate change, notably the 8.2 ka cooling event , and the loss of coastal land favoured by early farmers, may have contributed to the spread of the Neolithic Revolution to Europe in its Neolithic period.
The Goldthwait Sea was a sea that emerged during the last deglaciation, starting around 13,000 years ago, covering what is now the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and surrounding areas. At that time, the land had been depressed under the weight of the Laurentide Ice Sheet, which was up to 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) thick. Areas on the Anticosti Island and low-lying regions of Quebec and the Maritimes bordering the Saint Lawrence were below sea level. As the land rebounded over the next 3,000 years, despite rising sea levels the sea retreated to roughly the present boundaries of the Gulf.
Edouard Bard, born on September 1, 1962, is a French climatologist, Professor of Climate and Ocean Evolution at the Collège de France and a member of the French Academy of Sciences.