Glacial isostatic adjustment

Glacial isostatic adjustment is the slow deformation of Earth’s crust and mantle as ice sheets grow and melt, accompanied by changes in gravity and sea level.

Lithospheric flexure: The bending of a planet’s strong outer shell under surface loads. Ice sheets bend the lithosphere downward, while surrounding regions can bulge upward.
Relative sea-level change: The change in sea level measured relative to the land at a particular location. Land uplift or subsidence can make local sea level differ from the global average.
Fennoscandia: The region encompassing the Scandinavian Peninsula and adjacent northern European areas. Its ongoing uplift is among the clearest records of adjustment after the Fennoscandian ice sheet.
Isostasy: The gravitational balance of Earth’s lithosphere as it rests on or deforms over the mantle. Glacial adjustment is a time-dependent response of the isostatic balance to changing ice loads.
Glacial isostatic adjustment model: A numerical reconstruction of solid-Earth deformation and sea-level change caused by past ice loading. Different ice histories and mantle properties can produce competing fits to present observations.
Viscoelasticity: A material response combining immediate elastic deformation with time-dependent viscous flow. Earth’s mantle responds elastically at first and then flows over centuries to millennia.
Sea-level equation: A framework for calculating sea-level change from ice redistribution, solid-Earth deformation, and gravity. It combines crustal motion with the changing gravitational attraction of ice sheets.
Hudson Bay: A large inland sea in northeastern Canada, bordered by land once covered by the Laurentide Ice Sheet. Rapid present-day uplift around the bay reflects the removal of thick Laurentide ice.
Ice sheet: A continental-scale mass of glacial ice covering extensive land areas. Changes in ice-sheet thickness provide the loads that drive the adjustment.
Earth rheology: The study of how Earth materials deform and flow under applied forces over time. Uncertainty in mantle and lithosphere behavior limits the precision of adjustment predictions.

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