Abstract
AbstractThe Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) is out of equilibrium with the current anthropogenic‐enhanced climate forcing. Paleoenvironmental records and ice sheet models reveal that the AIS has been tightly coupled to the climate system during the past and indicate the potential for accelerated and sustained Antarctic ice mass loss into the future. Modern observations by contrast suggest that the AIS has only just started to respond to climate change in recent decades. The maximum projected sea level contribution from Antarctica to 2100 has increased significantly since the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 5th Assessment Report, although estimates continue to evolve with new observational and theoretical advances. This review brings together recent literature highlighting the progress made on the known processes and feedbacks that influence the stability of the AIS. Reducing the uncertainty in the magnitude and timing of the future sea level response to AIS change requires a multidisciplinary approach that integrates knowledge of the interactions between the ice sheet, solid Earth, atmosphere, and ocean systems and across time scales of days to millennia. We start by reviewing the processes affecting AIS mass change, from atmospheric and oceanic processes acting on short time scales (days to decades), through to ice processes acting on intermediate time scales (decades to centuries) and the response to solid Earth interactions over longer time scales (decades to millennia). We then review the evidence of AIS changes from the Pliocene to the present and consider the projections of global sea level rise and their consequences. We highlight priority research areas required to improve our understanding of the processes and feedbacks governing AIS change.
Highlights
Introduction and MotivationThe Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) is the largest potential source of and most uncertain contributor to global sea level rise (Oppenheimer et al, 2019)
We start by reviewing the processes affecting AIS mass change, from atmospheric and oceanic processes acting on short time scales, through to ice processes acting on intermediate time scales and the response to solid Earth interactions over longer time scales
Advances have been made in understanding the interaction between the solid Earth response that results in grounding line migration and near‐field sea level change; improved seismic data coverage and more Global Positioning System (GPS) and Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS)‐derived surface deformation measurements; and the inclusion of three‐dimensional (3‐D) Antarctic rheology, which determines the deformation of the bedrock topography beneath the ice sheet and varies according to the viscoelastic properties of the Earth (Gomez et al, 2018), into glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA) models
Summary
The Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) is the largest potential source of and most uncertain contributor to global sea level rise (Oppenheimer et al, 2019). A model incorporating ice cliff failure estimated an Antarctic contribution to global sea level rise of 1.05 ± 0.30 m by 2100 under the high‐end Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 (RCP8.5) climate scenario, increasing to 15.65 ± 2.00 m by 2500 (DeConto & Pollard, 2016). This mechanism has not been directly observed in polar ice sheets and glaciers. A summary is presented of the current knowledge about processes that govern AIS stability across the range of disciplines included in this review, and we offer a list of research priorities for understanding AIS behavior and for reducing uncertainty in its response to, and role in, future climate perturbations
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