A study of Glacial Isostatic Adjustment in Greenland

The ice loading histories used for this study are derived from t he ICE-5G model (Peltier, 2004) and the thermomechanical ice flow model SICOPOLIS (Greve, 1997). The ICE-5G is a global ice sheet reconstruction consistent with isostatic rebound of the earth and sea level reco rds. The SICOPOLIS model simulates ice volume of the Greenland Ice Sheet over two gl acial-interglacial cycles by forcing the model with climate th at is based on surface temperature records from the GRIP and Vostok ice cores and inte rpolation between the present climatic conditions and the Last Glacial Maximum climate anomalies (Greve, 2005). The two ice loading histories fr om 20 ky BP until present are used to compute present day upli ft rates for Greenland with the code SELEN (Spada and Stocchi, 2007). The figures below sh ow the difference in ice thickness between the two ice loading histories, ICE-5G and SICOPOLIS, at a few time steps. Starting from 9 ky BP the two models show different trends in ice thickness variation, mostl y at the ice margin.