The impact of the North American glacial topography on the evolution of the Eurasian ice sheet over the last glacial cycle

However, to what extent the two ice sheets influenced each others' growth trajectories remains largely unexplored. In this study we investigate how an ice sheet in North America influences the downstream evolution of the Eurasian ice sheet, using a thermomechanical ice-sheet model forced by climate data from atmospheric snapshot experiments of three distinctly different phases of the last glacial cycle: the Marine Isotope Stages 5b, 4, and 2 (Last Glacial Maximum - LGM).

Owing to the large uncertainty associated with glacial changes in the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation, each atmospheric snapshot experiment was conducted using two distinctly different ocean heat transport representations. Our results suggest that changes in the North American paleo-topography may have largely controlled the zonal distribution of the Eurasian ice sheet. In the MIS4 and LGM experiments, the Eurasian ice sheet migrates westward towards the Atlantic sector -- largely consistent with geological data and contemporary ice-sheet reconstructions -- due to a low wave number stationary wave response, which yields a cooling in Europe and a warming in northeastern Siberia.