Last-glacial-cycle glacier erosion potential in the Alps

Seguinot, Julien; Delaney, Ian

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/esurf-9-923-2021

Articles | Volume 9, issue 4

https://doi.org/10.5194/esurf-9-923-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/esurf-9-923-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 9, issue 4

Research article

|

03 Aug 2021

Research article |

| 03 Aug 2021

Last-glacial-cycle glacier erosion potential in the Alps

Julien Seguinot and Ian Delaney

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/esurf-9-923-2021-supplement

Data sets

Alpine ice sheet erosion potential aggregated variables J. Seguinot https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5084579

Alpine ice sheet glacial cycle simulations aggregated variables J. Seguinot https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3604174

Alpine ice sheet glacial cycle simulations continuous variables J. Seguinot https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3604142

Model code and software

PISM, a Parallel Ice Sheet Model the PISM authors https://github.com/pism/pism/commit/e9d2d1f

Video supplement

Alpine glaciers erosion potential over the last 120000 years J. Seguinot https://vimeo.com/503162771

Alpine glacial cycle erosion vs ice volume J. Seguinot https://vimeo.com/512478926

Alpine glacial cycle erosion vs bedrock altitude J. Seguinot https://vimeo.com/512479008

Short summary

Ancient Alpine glaciers have carved a fascinating landscape of piedmont lakes, glacial valleys, and mountain cirques. Using a previous supercomputer simulation of glacier flow, we show that glacier erosion has constantly evolved and moved to different parts of the Alps. Interestingly, larger glaciers do not always cause more rapid erosion. Instead, glacier erosion is modelled to slow down during glacier advance and peak during phases of retreat, such as the one the Earth is currently undergoing.