https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-2020-308 Preprint. Discussion started: 19 November 2020 c Author(s) 2020. CC BY 4.0 License. Did Holocene climate changes drive West Antarctic grounding line retreat and re-advance? Sarah U. Neuhaus1, Slawek M. Tulaczyk1, Nathan D. Stansell2, Jason J. Coenen2, Reed P. Scherer2, Jill 5 A. Mikucki3, Ross D. Powell2 1Earth and Planetary Sciences, University oF CaliFornia Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064, USA 2Department oF Geology and Environmental Geosciences, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL, 60115, USA 3Department oF Microbiology, University oF Tennessee Knoxville, Knoxville, TN, 37996, USA 10 Correspondence to: Sarah U. Neuhaus (
[email protected]) Abstract. Knowledge oF past ice sheet conFigurations is useFul For informing projections of Future ice sheet dynamics and For calibrating ice sheet models. The topology oF grounding line retreat in the Ross Sea Sector oF Antarctica has been much debated, but it has generally been assumed that the modern ice sheet is as small as it has been for more than 100,000 years 15 (Conway et al., 1999; Lee et al., 2017; Lowry et al., 2019; McKay et al., 2016; Scherer et al., 1998). Recent findings suggest that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) grounding line retreated beyond its current location earlier in the Holocene and subsequently re-advanced to reach its modern position (Bradley et al., 2015; Kingslake et al., 2018). Here, we further constrain the post-LGM grounding line retreat and re-advance in the Ross Sea Sector using a two-phase model of radiocarbon input and decay in subglacial sediments From six sub-ice sampling locations.