Late-glacial and Holocene glacier fluctuations and environmental change on South Georgia, Southern Ocean
This paper combines a study of glacier fluctuations and palaeoecological changes to determine the environmental history of South Georgia since the last glacial maximum. The most extensive Holocene advance of South Georgia glaciers culminated just
before 2 200 yr B.P. The Holocene temperature changes of between 0.5 and 1.0o C are comparable in scale and timing to those identified from recent analyses of Vostok ice cores from the Antarctic ice sheet.
The model is driven by sea-level change over the last 40,000 yr in association with assumed changes in the rate of melting beneath ice shelves. Ice growth and decay are characterized by thresholds which separate periods of steady state from periods
of rapid transition. Tests show that ice sheet behavior is most sensitive to sea-level change, basal marine melting and accumulation and is less sensitive to isostasy, spatial variation in accumulation, calving rates, and ice flow parameterization.