Articles | Volume 21, issue 11
https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-21-2263-2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
East Greenland Ice Sheet retreat history from Scoresby Sund and Storstrømmen Glacier during the last deglaciation
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- Final revised paper (published on 18 Nov 2025)
- Supplement to the final revised paper
- Preprint (discussion started on 30 Jun 2025)
- Supplement to the preprint
Interactive discussion
Status: closed
Comment types: AC – author | RC – referee | CC – community | EC – editor | CEC – chief editor
| : Report abuse
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RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2025-2780', Anonymous Referee #1, 29 Jul 2025
- AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Jacob Anderson, 17 Sep 2025
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RC2: 'Comment on egusphere-2025-2780', Anonymous Referee #2, 01 Aug 2025
- AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Jacob Anderson, 17 Sep 2025
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CC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2025-2780', Meredith Kelly, 25 Aug 2025
- AC3: 'Reply on CC1', Jacob Anderson, 17 Sep 2025
Peer review completion
AR – Author's response | RR – Referee report | ED – Editor decision | EF – Editorial file upload
ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (18 Sep 2025) by Stephen Obrochta
AR by Jacob Anderson on behalf of the Authors (18 Sep 2025)
Author's response
Author's tracked changes
Manuscript
ED: Publish as is (22 Sep 2025) by Stephen Obrochta
AR by Jacob Anderson on behalf of the Authors (25 Sep 2025)
Manuscript
Post-review adjustments
AA – Author's adjustment | EA – Editor approval
AA by Jacob Anderson on behalf of the Authors (11 Nov 2025)
Author's adjustment
Manuscript
EA: Adjustments approved (12 Nov 2025) by Stephen Obrochta
The manuscript by Anderson et al provides new information on the last deglaciation of NE Greenland. Based on 29 10Be ages from Scoresby Sund and Storstrømmen Isbræ, they add to the existing geochronological data from the area. Overall, the new data is not surprising but generally supports the existing deglaciation chronology. The data is furthermore used to constrain the retreat rates from the outer coast to the present-day ice margin. Based on the compilation of data, they calculated retreat rates of 43 to 28 m/yr. These estimates are similar to what has previously been reported and identical to modern observations of ice retreat. One could be critical and argue that the new results lack novelty and are insufficient to warrant a new publication. However, I find it very valuable as it provides more data to constrain the deglaciation of NE Greenland – an area where little work has been done. Accordingly, I recommend publication as it provides one more piece in the puzzle of the deglaciation history of NE Greenland.
Overall, I find the manuscript well-written, and the data support the conclusions. Besides some general comments, I have only a few minor comments that are all provided to improve the quality of the manuscript.
General comments:
Minor comments:
Line 14: As written in the abstract – the study area concerns Scoresby Sund and Storstrømmen Glacier and this should be reflected in the title.
Line 45: Change Storstrømmen ”Isstrøm” to ”Glacier”
Line 57: It would be relevant to add a sentence on the Holocene history of NEGIS i.e. Weidick et al., 1996; Bennike and Weidick 2001; Larsen et al., 2018; Roberts et al., 2024
Line 60: Leger et al have made an excellent review of the overall deglaciation history of Greenland based on existing data. However, the citation to their work here is misplaced as they don’t provide any new data in East Greenland, unlike the other cited papers.
Line 70: In Larsen et al., 2022, there are more comprehensive ice margin outlines in NE and E Greenland that could be added to the figure.
Line 96: Roberts et al., 2024 are determining the thinning history of 79N based on several dip-stick profiles. For the retreat history, it would be more accurate to cite Bennike and Weidick 2001; Larsen et al., 2018.
Line 100-105: This paragraph is not very relevant for this study.
Line 135: Add Germania Land and other place names to figure 1. The Milne Land moraines are discontinuous but have been inferred to run parallel to the coast from Scoresby Sund to Germania Land. However, it has only been dated around Scoresby Sund and the correlation is uncertain.
Figure 3: The age estimate from Levy et al is based on several 10Be dates. I suggest adding this information to the figure caption or to the figure as n=x next to the 10Be age.
I would make Panel A bigger and add the weighted mean from each site below the individual 10Be dates. Then Panel B could be omitted.
Line 159: Change Storstrømmen ”Isstrøm” to ”Glacier”
Figure 4: The age estimates are based on several 10Be dates from each site. I suggest adding this information to the figure caption or to the figure as n=x next to the 10Be age. It would also be relevant to include the 10Be ages from Håkansson et al. and Skov et al on the figure, although they are not used to calculate retreat rates.
Line 230 (table 2): Why are all the samples from Storstrømmen used to calculate a mean age? It would be more relevant to provide the mean ages of M1, and outboard.
Line 321. In the discussion of the deglaciation of Scoresby Sund I miss a discussion of the previous work of Hall et al., 2008a, b; Kelly et al., 2008 from Kjove Land, Gurreholm dal and Schuchert dal.
Figure 6: I suggest adding the calculated weighted mean, excluding outliers from table 2, to the camel plots.
Figure 7: It is not clear which 10Be + 14C dates have been used to constrain the retreat history. Maybe this could be highlighted on Figure 3 + 4?
Line 375: Within uncertainty, the M1 moraine (8.6 +- 0.3 ka) could be related to the 8.2 ka event when excluding one outlier of 9.6 ka. However, in theory, it might also be related to the 9.3 ka event if the samples dated reflect the stabilisation of the moraine rather than the deposition of the moraine cf. Heyman et al., 2011. Or something unrelated to climate - the glacier is retreating to a pinning point (the island), and this could halt the ice retreat and give rise to the deposition of moraine M1. Given that the authors only have data from one moraine, it is a little far-fetched to speculate that the ice sheet reacted to the 8.2 ka event despite compelling evidence from W Greenland (c.f. Young et al.). I urge the authors to tone down the potential relation to the 8.2 ka event (paragraphs line 375-397).