Large‐scale instabilities of the Laurentide ice sheet simulated in a fully coupled climate‐system model

Heinrich events, related to large‐scale surges of the Laurentide ice sheet, represent one of the most dramatic types of abrupt climate change occurring during the last glacial. Here, using a coupled atmosphere‐ocean‐biosphere‐ice sheet model, we simulate quasi‐periodic large‐scale surges from the Laurentide ice sheet. The average time between simulated events is about 7,000 yrs, while the surging phase of each event lasts only several hundred years, with a total ice volume discharge corresponding to 5–10 m of sea level rise. In our model the simulated ice surges represent internal oscillations of the ice sheet. At the same time, our results suggest the possibility of a synchronization between instabilities of different ice sheets, as indicated in paleoclimate records.