Abstract
Projections of future sea-level rise benefit from understanding the response of past ice sheets to warming during past Quaternary interglacials. Constraints on the extent of inland Greenland Ice Sheet retreat during the Middle Holocene (~8–4 thousand years before present) are limited because geological records of a smaller-than-modern phase largely remain beneath the modern ice sheet. We drilled through 509 metres of firn and ice at Prudhoe Dome, northwestern Greenland, to obtain sub-ice material yielding direct evidence for the response of the northwest Greenland ice sheet to Holocene warmth. Here we present infrared stimulated luminescence measurements from sub-ice sediments that indicate that the ground below the summit was exposed to sunlight 7.1 ± 1.1 thousand years ago. This proposed complete deglaciation of Prudhoe Dome, coeval to reduced extent at other ice caps across northern Greenland, is consistent with interglacial-only δ18O values from the Prudhoe Dome ice column and ice depth–age modelling. Our results point to a substantial response of the northwest Greenland ice sheet to early Holocene warming, estimated to be +3–5 °C from palaeoclimate data. This range of summer temperatures is similar to projections of warming by 2100 CE.
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Data availability
Luminescence data are available via Zenodo at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17047558 (ref. 53) and in the Supplementary Information. Oxygen isotope data are available via PANGAEA at https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.984743 (ref. 54) and in the Supplementary Information. Model data are available via Zenodo at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17048033 (ref. 55).
Code availability
MATLAB code and data used for ice depth–age modelling are available via Zenodo at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17048033 (ref. 54).
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Acknowledgements
We thank the people and government of Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland) for allowing us to conduct research on the island. Thank you to R. Erickson, F. R. Harmon and the National Science Foundation Ice Drilling Program for drill operations; J. Þorbjörnsson and T. Nave for field support; Polar Field Services, especially K. Cosper, for field logistics; Kenn Borek Air, Air Greenland and M. Vogt at Volcano Heli for flights; and Pituffik Space Base for pre- and post-field support. NSF grants 1933938 (J.P.B.), 1933927 (J.M.S., N.E.Y.), 1934477 (R.M.D.), 1933802 (S.A.) supported this research. V.G. acknowledges funding from the Danish Research Foundation (grant ‘Iso-DeepIce’ 10.46540/2032-00228B). J.M.S. acknowledges support from the Vetlesen Foundation.
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C.K.W.-G., N.D.B. and J.P.B. designed the study. C.K.W.-G., J.P.B., A.B.-K., N.E.Y., T.K., E.R.M., S.A., N.T.S. and J.M.S. conducted fieldwork. C.K.W.-G., N.D.B., A.B.-K. and V.G. conducted sample preparation and lab analyses. J.A.M. modelled the age of the basal ice. C.K.W.-G., N.D.B. and J.P.B. conducted initial data analysis and interpretation, with input from all authors. C.K.W.-G., N.D.B. and J.P.B. drafted all figures and wrote the first draft of the manuscript. All authors contributed substantially to additional iterations. J.P.B., N.E.Y., S.A., R.D. and J.M.S. acquired funding.
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Extended data
Extended Data Fig. 1 ASIG Core log and core images/CT scans.
CT scan is shown for the uppermost 7.5 cm collected in the dark. Photos are from the lower sections.
Extended Data Fig. 2 CT scan image of the uppermost 7.5 cm of sediment from the ASIG core.
Sediment was collected in an opaque PVC tube for luminescence analysis. During drilling or sample extraction, a chunk of the uppermost sediment became loose. However, using the CT scan image, we were able to reconstruct its original orientation. In this image, the red lines on both chunks show where they were connected, the blue line shows the original top surface, and the yellow line shows the original side surface. The bright spot in the top of the image is a tooth from the drill chuck that was dropped down the borehole during drill operations.
Extended Data Fig. 3 One-dimensional steady-state models of the depth–age relationship of the ice column at the Prudhoe drill site.
For each model parameter in each model/panel, a range of five values is considered (see legend), and the resulting depth-age relationship shown is darker for increasing values. For each model/panel, the best estimate of the modern value is shown as a thicker dashed line. A): Nye (sandwich) model depends only on accumulation rate (bdot), the ice column deforms uniformly by pure shear and is not melting at the bed. B): Nye+melt model is the same as Nye (A), except that basal melting (mdot) is included. C): Dansgaard-Johnsen model, where the ice column of thickness H deforms by pure shear above a height h above the bed, and by simple shear below it. The first two models (Nye and Nye+melt) tend to produce younger ice columns, and regardless of parameter selection, they consistently indicate a completely Holocene ice column. The latter model (Dansgaard–Johnsen) indicates that a non-negligible basal layer of Pleistocene ice is possible at lower accumulation rates and higher basal shear layer thicknesses. From this initial modeling, we conclude that no past major basal shear or melting is required to reproduce the measured the δ¹⁸O drill ice chip record, and that simplest explanation for that record is an ice cap that regrew under a mean ice accumulation rate slightly lower than present.
Supplementary information
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Supplementary Figs. 1–8.
Supplementary Tables 1–5 (download XLSX )
Supplementary Table 1: DRAC input sheet for calculating environmental dose rates for 0–2.5, 2.5–5.0 and 5.0–7.5 cm segments. Supplementary Table 2: results from MAM-3 estimates of De. Supplementary Table 3: depth-averaged dose rates. Supplementary Table 4: burial age calculations for 0–7.5 cm. Supplementary Table 5: water isotope measurements.
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Walcott-George, C.K., Brown, N.D., Briner, J.P. et al. Deglaciation of the Prudhoe Dome in northwestern Greenland in response to Holocene warming. Nat. Geosci. 19, 189–194 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-025-01889-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-025-01889-9
