Improving constraints on paleo-ice sheets in the Amundsen Sea Embayment

Amundsen Sea Embayment: Tectonic and Climatic Evolution; Granada, Spain, 9 September 2009; Geoscientists working on the Amundsen Sea Embayment (ASE) of West Antarctica met at a workshop during the First Antarctic Climate Evolution Symposium to discuss recent advances from, and future priorities for, work in this region. The ASE is the most rapidly changing sector of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) and contains enough ice to raise sea level by 1.2 meters. Ice sheet modeling studies suggest that this sector of the WAIS is potentially unstable. Considerable efforts have been made through several national Antarctic programs to acquire new data on the geological structure, subglacial topography, bathymetry, and glacial history of this remote region. These data are important for establishing boundary conditions for ice sheet modeling, for providing constraints on past ice sheet changes that can be used to test models, and for putting recent changes into a longer-term context.

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