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.
Similar content being viewed by others
Data availability
Model outputs presented in this paper are available online at https://osf.io/wbne9/overview. Megasplice data from Ref. 34 as shown in Fig. 2a–d is available at https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.869815. Clast abundance data from Ref. 33 as shown in Fig. 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 Supplementary Fig. S2 are available at https://imbie.org/imbie-2016/drainage-basins/.
Code availability
Simulations use the open-source Parallel Ice Sheet Model, available at https://github.com/pism/pism/. Most of the analyses presented in the paper (e.g. Pearson’s correlation coefficient) are easily achieved using data processing software, such as Generic Mapping Tools, Python, Julia, or Matlab. The open-source Astrochron R package used in Fig. 2 is available at https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/astrochron/index.html. Wavelet analysis in Fig. 3 was undertaken in Python using a script by Evgeniya Predybaylo (http://paos.colorado.edu/research/wavelets/), translated from original Matlab code written by C. Torrence.
References
Gasson, E. G. & Keisling, B. A. The Antarctic ice sheet. Oceanography 33, 90–100 (2020).
Berends, C. J., De Boer, B. & Van De Wal, R. S. Reconstructing the evolution of ice sheets, sea level, and atmospheric CO2 during the past 3.6 million years. Climate 17, 361–377 (2021).
Stokes, C., Bamber, J., Dutton, A. and DeConto, R. Warming of +1.5°C is too high for polar ice sheets. Commun. Earth Environ. 6, 351 (2025).
Imbrie, J. & Imbrie, J. Z. Modeling the climatic response to orbital variations. Science 207, 943–953 (1980).
Prentice, M. & Matthews, R. Tertiary ice sheet dynamics: the snow gun hypothesis. J. Geophys. Res. 96, 6811–6827 (1991).
Clark, P. U. et al. Freshwater forcing of abrupt climate change during the last glaciation. Science 293, 283–287 (2001).
Passchier, S., Falk, C. & Florindo, F. Orbitally paced shifts in the particle size of Antarctic continental shelf sediments in response to ice dynamics during the Miocene climatic optimum. Geosphere 9, 54–62 (2013).
Wickert, A. D. et al. Marine-calibrated chronology of southern Laurentide Ice Sheet advance and retreat: 2000-year cycles paced by meltwater–climate feedback. Geophys. Res. Lett. 50, e2022GL100391 (2023).
Hou, S. et al. Reconciling Southern Ocean fronts equatorward migration with minor Antarctic ice volume change during Miocene cooling. Nat. Commun. 14, 7230 (2023).
Tigchelaar, M., Timmermann, A., Pollard, D., Friedrich, T. & Heinemann, M. Local insolation changes enhance Antarctic interglacials: Insights from an 800,000-year ice sheet simulation with transient climate forcing. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 495, 69–78 (2018).
Bouchet, M. et al. The Antarctic Ice Core Chronology 2023 (AICC2023) chronological framework and associated timescale for the European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica (EPICA) Dome C ice core. Climate 19, 2257–2286 (2023).
Kravchinsky, V. A. et al. Millennial cycles in Greenland and Antarctic ice core records: evidence of astronomical influence on global climate. J. Geophys. Res. Atmos. 130, e2024JD042810 (2025).
Lisiecki, L. E. & Raymo, M. E. A Pliocene-Pleistocene stack of 57 globally distributed benthic δ18O records. Paleoceanography 20, PA1003,17 PP (2005).
Hays, J. D., Imbrie, J. & Shackleton, N. J. Variations in the earth/’s orbit; pacemaker of the ice ages. Science 194, 1121–1132 (1976).
Blaauw, M. Out of tune: the dangers of aligning proxy archives. Quat. Sci. Rev. 36, 38–49 (2012).
Ahn, S., Khider, D., Lisiecki, L. E. & Lawrence, C. E. A probabilistic pliocene–pleistocene stack of benthic δ18o using a profile hidden markov model. Dyn. Stat. Clim. Syst. 2, dzx002 (2017).
Stap, L. B., Knorr, G. & Lohmann, G. Anti-phased miocene ice volume and CO2 changes by transient antarctic ice sheet variability. Paleoceanogr. Paleoclimatol. 35, e2020PA003971 (2020).
Chandler, D. M. et al. Antarctic ice sheet tipping in the last 800,000 years warns of future ice loss. Commun. Earth Environ. 6, 420 (2025).
Gasson, E., DeConto, R. & Pollard, D. Modeling the oxygen isotope composition of the Antarctic ice sheet and its significance to Pliocene sea level. Geology 44, 827–830 (2016).
Wilson, D. S. and Luyendyk, B. P. West Antarctic paleotopography estimated at the Eocene-Oligocene climate transition. Geophys. Res. Lett. 36, 16 (2009).
Lewis, A. R. & Ashworth, A. C. An early to middle miocene record of ice-sheet and landscape evolution from the friis hills, antarctica. Bulletin 128, 719–738 (2016).
Chorley, H. et al. East antarctic ice sheet variability during the middle miocene climate transition captured in drill cores from the friis hills, transantarctic mountains. Bull. Geol. Soc. Am. 135, 1503–1529 (2023).
Liebrand, D. et al. Evolution of the early Antarctic ice ages. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 114, 3867–3872 (2017).
Duncan, B. et al. Climatic and tectonic drivers of late oligocene antarctic ice volume. Nat. Geosci. 15, 819–825 (2022).
Levy, R. et al. Antarctic ice sheet sensitivity to atmospheric CO2 variations in the early to mid-Miocene. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1516030113 (2016).
Sullivan, N. B. et al. Millennial-scale variability of the antarctic ice sheet during the early miocene. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 120, e2304152120 (2023).
McKay, R. et al. Miocene ice sheet dynamics and sediment deposition in the central ross sea, antarctica. Geol. Soc. Am. Bull. 137, 1267–1291 (2025).
Schnitker, D. North Atlantic oceanography as possible cause of Antarctic glaciation and eutrophication. Nature 284, 615–616 (1980).
Yamane, M. et al. Exposure age and ice-sheet model constraints on Pliocene East Antarctic ice sheet dynamics. Nat. Commun. 6, 8016 (2015).
Halberstadt, A. R. W. et al. Co2 and tectonic controls on antarctic climate and ice-sheet evolution in the mid-miocene. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 564, 116908 (2021).
Stap, L. B., Berends, C. J. & van de Wal, R. S. Miocene Antarctic ice sheet area responds significantly faster than volume to CO2 -induced climate change. Climate 20, 257–266 (2024).
Winkelmann, R., Levermann, A., Frieler, K. & Martin, M. Increased future ice discharge from Antarctica owing to higher snowfall. Nature 492, 239–242 (2012).
Sullivan, N. B. et al. Obliquity disruption and antarctic ice sheet dynamics over a 2.4-myr astronomical grand cycle. Sci. Adv. 11, eadl1996 (2025).
De Vleeschouwer, D., Vahlenkamp, M., Crucifix, M. & Pälike, H. Alternating southern and northern hemisphere climate response to astronomical forcing during the past 35 my. Geology 45, 375–378 (2017).
Thomson, D. J. Spectrum estimation and harmonic analysis. Proc. IEEE 70, 1055–1096 (1982).
Laskar, J. et al. A long-term numerical solution for the insolation quantities of the Earth. Astron. Astrophys. 428, 261–285 (2004).
Meyers, S. Astrochron: a computational tool for astrochronology. CRAN: Contributed Packages (CRAN, 2014).
Levy, R. et al. Antarctic ice-sheet sensitivity to obliquity forcing enhanced through ocean connections. Nat. Geosci. 12, 132–137 (2019).
Abe-Ouchi, A. et al. Insolation-driven 100,000-year glacial cycles and hysteresis of ice-sheet volume. Nature 500, 190–193 (2013).
Pollard, D. A simple ice sheet model yields realistic 100kyr glacial cycles. Nature 296, 334–338 (1982).
Quiquet, A. et al. Deglacial ice sheet instabilities induced by proglacial lakes. Geophys. Res. Lett. 48, e2020GL092141 (2021).
Garbe, J., Albrecht, T., Levermann, A., Donges, J. F. & Winkelmann, R. The hysteresis of the Antarctic ice sheet. Nature 585, 538–544 (2020).
Leloup, G., Quiquet, A., Roche, D. M., Dumas, C. & Paillard, D. Hysteresis of the antarctic ice sheet with a coupled climate-ice-sheet model. Geophys. Res. Lett. 52, e2024GL111492 (2025).
Weber, M. E., Golledge, N. R., Fogwill, C. J., Turney, C. S. & Thomas, Z. A. Decadal-scale onset and termination of Antarctic ice-mass loss during the last deglaciation. Nat. Commun. 12, 1–13 (2021).
Bueler, E. & Brown, J. Shallow shelf approximation as a “sliding law” in a thermomechanically coupled ice sheet model. J. Geophys. Res. 114, F03008 (2009).
Martin, M. A. et al. The Potsdam Parallel Ice Sheet Model (PISM-PIK) - Part 2: dynamic equilibrium simulation of the Antarctic ice sheet. Cryosphere 4, 1307–1341 (2010).
Golledge, N. R. et al. The multi-millennial Antarctic commitment to future sea-level rise. Nature 526, 421–425 (2015).
Golledge, N. R. et al. Global environmental consequences of twenty-first-century ice-sheet melt. Nature 566, 65–72 (2019).
Tewari, K., Mishra, S. K., Dewan, A. & Ozawa, H. Effects of the Antarctic elevation on the atmospheric circulation. Theor. Appl. Climatol. 143, 1487–1499 (2021).
Gehring, J. et al. Orographic flow influence on precipitation during an atmospheric river event at davis, antarctica. J. Geophys. Res. Atmos. 127, e2021JD035210 (2022).
Frieler, K. et al. Consistent evidence of increasing Antarctic accumulation with warming. Nat. Clim. Change 5, 348–352 (2015).
Meyers, S. R. and Hinnov, L. A. Northern Hemisphere glaciation and the evolution of Plio-Pleistocene climate noise. Paleoceanography 25, 1834 (2010).
Osman, M. B. et al. Globally resolved surface temperatures since the last glacial maximum. Nature 599, 239–244 (2021).
Clark, P. U., Shakun, J. D., Rosenthal, Y., Köhler, P. & Bartlein, P. J. Global and regional temperature change over the past 4.5 million years. Science 383, 884–890 (2024).
Bueler, E., Lingle, C. & Brown, J. Fast computation of a viscoelastic deformable Earth model for ice-sheet simulations. Ann. Glaciol. 46, 97–105 (2007).
Levermann, A. et al. Kinematic first-order calving law implies potential for abrupt ice-shelf retreat. Cryosphere 6, 273–286 (2012).
Rignot, E. & Jacobs, S. S. Rapid bottom melting widespread near Antarctic Ice Sheet grounding lines. Science 296, 2020–2023 (2002).
Feldmann, J., Albrecht, T., Khroulev, C., Pattyn, F. & Levermann, A. Resolution-dependent performance of grounding line motion in a shallow model compared to a full-Stokes model according to the MISMIP3d intercomparison. J. Glaciol. 60, 353–360 (2014).
Josenhans, H. & Zevenhuizen, J. Dynamics of the laurentide ice sheet in hudson bay, canada. Mar. Geol. 92, 1–26 (1990).
Clason, C. C. et al. Controls on the early holocene collapse of the bothnian sea ice stream. J. Geophys. Res. Earth Surf. 121, 2494–2513 (2016).
Szuman, I. et al. Reconstructing dynamics of the baltic ice stream complex during deglaciation of the last scandinavian ice sheet. Cryosphere 18, 2407–2428 (2024).
Mangerud, J., Goehring, B. M., Lohne, Ø. S., Svendsen, J. I. & Gyllencreutz, R. Collapse of marine-based outlet glaciers from the scandinavian ice sheet. Quat. Sci. Rev. 67, 8–16 (2013).
Patton, H. et al. Geophysical constraints on the dynamics and retreat of the barents sea ice sheet as a paleobenchmark for models of marine ice sheet deglaciation. Rev. Geophys. 53, 1051–1098 (2015).
Paxman, G. J. et al. Reconstructions of antarctic topography since the eocene–oligocene boundary. Palaeogeogr. Palaeoclimatol. Palaeoecol. 535, 109346 (2019).
Acknowledgements
We are very grateful to the two anonymous reviewers whose comments helped improve this work. The study was funded by contracts RDF-VUW1501 and MFP-VUW2207 from the Royal Society Te Apārangi, and contracts RTVU2206 & ANTA1801 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 received 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” programme. 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 Rāpoi, are both gratefully acknowledged.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
N.R.G. devised and carried out the modelling experiments and wrote the manuscript with input from all authors. R.H.L. contributed to the analysis of palaeoclimate data. S.M. undertook the analysis of d18O data shown in Fig. 2b–d. M.E.W., P.U.C., J.B., H.I., H.K., D.P.L., R.M.M., T.R.N., and G.G. all contributed to the interpretation of model results.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Peer review
Peer review information
Communications Earth and Environment thanks Meike D. W. Scherrenberg and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Primary Handling Editors: Kyung-Sook Yun and Nicola Colombo. [A peer review file is available.]
Additional information
Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Supplementary information
Rights and permissions
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.
About this article
Cite this article
Golledge, N.R., Levy, R.H., Meyers, S.R. et al. State dependent ice-sheet resonance under Cenozoic and future climates. Commun Earth Environ (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-025-03135-x
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-025-03135-x
