State dependent ice-sheet resonance under Cenozoic and future climates

Nicholas R. Golledge; R. H. Levy; Stephen Meyers; Michael E Weber; Peter U. Clark; Julianne Burns; Hana Ishii; Hanna Knahl; Daniel P Lowry; Robert M. McKay; T. R. Naish; Georgia Grant

doi:10.1038/s43247-025-03135-x

State dependent ice-sheet resonance under Cenozoic and future climates

Nicholas R. Golledge
, R. H. Levy
, Stephen Meyers
, Michael E Weber
, Peter U. Clark
, Julianne Burns
, Hana Ishii
, Hanna Knahl
, Daniel P Lowry
, Robert M. McKay
, T. R. Naish
, Georgia Grant

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)

6 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Inferences of ice-sheet change through geological time rely on environmental proxies, yet these inferences assume an unchanging ice-sheet response to climate. Here, using 500-kyr long ice-sheet simulations, we show that the directionality of ice sheet change depends on the background state of the climate. Under cold atmospheric conditions with high-amplitude glacial–interglacial changes in sub-shelf melt, ice sheets advance during cold phases and retreat as the climate warms. However, under warmer air temperatures with reduced glacial–interglacial ice-shelf melt variability, ice sheets advance during warm phases and retreat during colder periods. Forced with a linearly changing climate, the ice sheet switches from one mode to the other, and a resonant response arises at half the forcing frequency. These findings imply that climate–ice sheet phasing is not constant over time, and suggest that ice sheet behaviour under a future, warmer, climate may be substantially different from today.

Original language	English
Article number	114
Pages (from-to)	1-11
Number of pages	11
Journal	Communications Earth & Environment
Volume	7
Issue number	1
Early online date	12 Jan 2026
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-025-03135-x
Publication status	Published (in print/issue) - 2 Feb 2026

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2026.

Data Availability Statement

Model outputs presented in this paper are available online at https://osf.io/wbne9/overview. Figure 2a–d is available Clast abundance data from Ref.56 Megasplice data from Ref.57 at as shown in https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.869815. as shown in Figure 2e,f are available at https://www.science.org/doi/suppl/10.1126/sciadv.adl1996/suppl file/sciadv.adl1996 data s1.zip. Ice sheet drainage divides used for Fig. 2016/drainage-basins/. S

Funding

The study was funded by contracts RDF-VUW1501 and MFP- VUW2207 from the Royal Society Te Apa¯rangi, and contract RTVU2206 from the New Zealand Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment. SRM acknowledges support from a Guggenheim Fellowship, and Heising-Simons Foundation Award #2021-2797. MEW re- ceived funding from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG–Priority Programme 527, Grant We2039/17-1. HK is funded by the Helmhotz Association “Changing Earth – Sustaining our future” program. PISM development is currently supported by NSF grant OAC-2118285. Support from the Antarctic Research Centre, Victoria University of Wellington (VUW), as well as access to the VUW cluster Ra¯poi, are both gratefully acknowledged.

Funders	Funder number
Victoria University of Wellington
2021-2797
We2039/17-1, 527
RTVU2206, ANTA1801
National Science Foundation	OAC-2118285

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

SDG 13 Climate Action

Keywords

Cyrospheric science
palaeoclimate

Access to Document

10.1038/s43247-025-03135-x

s43247-025-03135-xFinal published version, 5.57 MBLicence: CC BY-NC-ND

Cite this

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title = "State dependent ice-sheet resonance under Cenozoic and future climates",

abstract = "Inferences of ice-sheet change through geological time rely on environmental proxies, yet these inferences assume an unchanging ice-sheet response to climate. Here, using 500-kyr long ice-sheet simulations, we show that the directionality of ice sheet change depends on the background state of the climate. Under cold atmospheric conditions with high-amplitude glacial–interglacial changes in sub-shelf melt, ice sheets advance during cold phases and retreat as the climate warms. However, under warmer air temperatures with reduced glacial–interglacial ice-shelf melt variability, ice sheets advance during warm phases and retreat during colder periods. Forced with a linearly changing climate, the ice sheet switches from one mode to the other, and a resonant response arises at half the forcing frequency. These findings imply that climate–ice sheet phasing is not constant over time, and suggest that ice sheet behaviour under a future, warmer, climate may be substantially different from today.",

keywords = "Cyrospheric science, palaeoclimate",

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doi = "10.1038/s43247-025-03135-x",

language = "English",

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AU - Golledge, Nicholas R.

AU - Levy, R. H.

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AU - Weber, Michael E

AU - Clark, Peter U.

AU - Burns, Julianne

AU - Ishii, Hana

AU - Knahl, Hanna

AU - Lowry, Daniel P

AU - McKay, Robert M.

AU - Naish, T. R.

AU - Grant, Georgia

PY - 2026/2/2

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N2 - Inferences of ice-sheet change through geological time rely on environmental proxies, yet these inferences assume an unchanging ice-sheet response to climate. Here, using 500-kyr long ice-sheet simulations, we show that the directionality of ice sheet change depends on the background state of the climate. Under cold atmospheric conditions with high-amplitude glacial–interglacial changes in sub-shelf melt, ice sheets advance during cold phases and retreat as the climate warms. However, under warmer air temperatures with reduced glacial–interglacial ice-shelf melt variability, ice sheets advance during warm phases and retreat during colder periods. Forced with a linearly changing climate, the ice sheet switches from one mode to the other, and a resonant response arises at half the forcing frequency. These findings imply that climate–ice sheet phasing is not constant over time, and suggest that ice sheet behaviour under a future, warmer, climate may be substantially different from today.

AB - Inferences of ice-sheet change through geological time rely on environmental proxies, yet these inferences assume an unchanging ice-sheet response to climate. Here, using 500-kyr long ice-sheet simulations, we show that the directionality of ice sheet change depends on the background state of the climate. Under cold atmospheric conditions with high-amplitude glacial–interglacial changes in sub-shelf melt, ice sheets advance during cold phases and retreat as the climate warms. However, under warmer air temperatures with reduced glacial–interglacial ice-shelf melt variability, ice sheets advance during warm phases and retreat during colder periods. Forced with a linearly changing climate, the ice sheet switches from one mode to the other, and a resonant response arises at half the forcing frequency. These findings imply that climate–ice sheet phasing is not constant over time, and suggest that ice sheet behaviour under a future, warmer, climate may be substantially different from today.

KW - Cyrospheric science

KW - palaeoclimate

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ER -

State dependent ice-sheet resonance under Cenozoic and future climates

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Data Availability Statement

Funding

UN SDGs

Keywords

Access to Document

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