Glacial Isostatic Adjustment Shapes Proglacial Lakes Over Glacial Cycles

As ice sheets load Earth's surface, they produce ice-marginal depressions which, when filled with meltwater, become proglacial lakes. We include self-consistently evolving proglacial lakes in a glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA) model and apply it to the Laurentide ice sheet over the last glacial cycle. We find that the locations of modeled lakes and the timing of their disappearance is consistent with the geological record. Lake loads can deflect topography by >10 m, and volumes collectively approach 30–45 cm global mean sea-level equivalent. GIA increases deglaciation-phase lake volume up to five-fold and average along-ice-margin depth ≤90 m compared to glaciation-phase ice volume analogs—differences driven by changes in the position and size of the peripheral bulge. Since ice-marginal lake depth affects grounding-line outflow, GIA-modulated proglacial lake depths could affect ice-sheet mass loss. Indeed, we find that Laurentide ice-margin retreat rate sometimes correlates with proglacial lake presence, indicating that proglacial lakes aid glacial collapse.