Research project: A journey from icehouse to greenhouse and back again...a story of Antarctic ice sheet stability and CO2
A "permanent" ice sheet is thought to have existed on Antarctica since Eocene-Oligocene transition (~34 Ma). Results of ice sheet modelling experiments suggest that once large ice sheets have grown on East Antarctica, due to a powerful hysteresis effect, they are inherently stable and consequently high levels of CO2 are needed in order to initiate deglaciation. However growing evidence from a number of palaeorecords suggest that the West and East Antarctic ice sheets may have retreated during warm intervals of the Cenozoic in the absence of big changes in atmospheric CO2. With carbon dioxide levels presently rising in the atmosphere, it is more important than ever to fully characterise the relationship between ice sheets and CO2.
