Reaching the 1.5 degree limit: what does it mean for West Antarctica and the global mean sea level?
What are the benefits of limiting the global warming to 1.5 degree with respect to pre-industrial conditions for the vulnerable region of West Antarctica which might be prone to positive feedback mechanisms between ocean circulation, melting of shelf ice and instabilities of the ice sheet? There are...
Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , , |
---|---|
Format: | Conference Object |
Language: | unknown |
Published: |
European Meteorological Society
2017
|
Subjects: | |
Online Access: | https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/46080/ https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/46080/1/ZUWEISS.pdf https://www.ems2017.eu/programme/how_to_access_the_programme.html https://hdl.handle.net/10013/epic.4d5f0a37-6514-45d8-8574-5d63e13322c0 https://hdl.handle.net/ |
id |
ftawi:oai:epic.awi.de:46080 |
---|---|
record_format |
openpolar |
spelling |
ftawi:oai:epic.awi.de:46080 2023-05-15T13:24:15+02:00 Reaching the 1.5 degree limit: what does it mean for West Antarctica and the global mean sea level? Semmler, Tido Rodehacke, Christian Gurses, Ozgur Pfeiffer, Madlene Barbi, Dirk Gierz, Paul Kleiner, Thomas Sutter, Johannes Wang, Qiang Jung, Thomas Lohmann, Gerrit 2017-09-04 application/pdf https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/46080/ https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/46080/1/ZUWEISS.pdf https://www.ems2017.eu/programme/how_to_access_the_programme.html https://hdl.handle.net/10013/epic.4d5f0a37-6514-45d8-8574-5d63e13322c0 https://hdl.handle.net/ unknown European Meteorological Society https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/46080/1/ZUWEISS.pdf https://hdl.handle.net/ Semmler, T. orcid:0000-0002-2254-4901 , Rodehacke, C. orcid:0000-0003-3110-3857 , Gurses, O. orcid:0000-0002-0646-5760 , Pfeiffer, M. , Barbi, D. orcid:0000-0002-5053-1788 , Gierz, P. orcid:0000-0002-4512-087X , Kleiner, T. orcid:0000-0001-7825-5765 , Sutter, J. , Wang, Q. orcid:0000-0002-2704-5394 , Jung, T. orcid:0000-0002-2651-1293 and Lohmann, G. orcid:0000-0003-2089-733X (2017) Reaching the 1.5 degree limit: what does it mean for West Antarctica and the global mean sea level? , EMS Annual Meeting 2017, Dublin, Ireland, 4 September 2017 - 8 September 2017 . hdl:10013/epic.4d5f0a37-6514-45d8-8574-5d63e13322c0 EPIC3EMS Annual Meeting 2017, Dublin, Ireland, 2017-09-04-2017-09-08Dublin, Ireland, European Meteorological Society Conference notRev 2017 ftawi 2021-12-24T15:43:31Z What are the benefits of limiting the global warming to 1.5 degree with respect to pre-industrial conditions for the vulnerable region of West Antarctica which might be prone to positive feedback mechanisms between ocean circulation, melting of shelf ice and instabilities of the ice sheet? There are indications that West Antarctic ice sheet instabilities have occurred in the Last Interglacial around 125.000 years ago. At that time the polar surface temperature was about 2K warmer than today. The question under which circumstances a tipping point may be reached and if this may happen again is therefore highly relevant, especially since a disintegration of the West Antarctic ice sheet could cause a global sea level rise between 3 and 5 m. Here we address this question with variable resolution, global coupled ice sheet - shelf ice - ocean - atmosphere multi-century simulations. With our innovative ocean modelling approach in the Finite Element Sea-ice Ocean Model FESOM it is possible to refine the ocean resolution to up to 3 km in the Amundsen Sea and 10 km around the whole Antarctica while keeping it relatively coarse in the order of a couple of hundred km in dynamically not very active regions such as the subtropical regions. This means that we can simulate the feedback between ocean and ice in the relevant regions highly resolved given that the ice sheet model runs at a resolution of 5 to 10 km. Three different emission scenarios are applied up to 2100, two of them limiting the global mean temperature increase to 1.5 ◦ C and 2 ◦ C respectively and one of them assuming business-as-usual conditions (IPCC SRES RCP8.5 scenario). The simulations are extended to 2400 with the greenhouse gas and aerosol concentrations kept constant at 2100 levels, respectively, to be able to simulate the long-term implications of different global warming levels. Conference Object Amundsen Sea Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica Ice Sheet Sea ice West Antarctica Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar- and Marine Research (AWI): ePIC (electronic Publication Information Center) Antarctic West Antarctica Amundsen Sea West Antarctic Ice Sheet |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar- and Marine Research (AWI): ePIC (electronic Publication Information Center) |
op_collection_id |
ftawi |
language |
unknown |
description |
What are the benefits of limiting the global warming to 1.5 degree with respect to pre-industrial conditions for the vulnerable region of West Antarctica which might be prone to positive feedback mechanisms between ocean circulation, melting of shelf ice and instabilities of the ice sheet? There are indications that West Antarctic ice sheet instabilities have occurred in the Last Interglacial around 125.000 years ago. At that time the polar surface temperature was about 2K warmer than today. The question under which circumstances a tipping point may be reached and if this may happen again is therefore highly relevant, especially since a disintegration of the West Antarctic ice sheet could cause a global sea level rise between 3 and 5 m. Here we address this question with variable resolution, global coupled ice sheet - shelf ice - ocean - atmosphere multi-century simulations. With our innovative ocean modelling approach in the Finite Element Sea-ice Ocean Model FESOM it is possible to refine the ocean resolution to up to 3 km in the Amundsen Sea and 10 km around the whole Antarctica while keeping it relatively coarse in the order of a couple of hundred km in dynamically not very active regions such as the subtropical regions. This means that we can simulate the feedback between ocean and ice in the relevant regions highly resolved given that the ice sheet model runs at a resolution of 5 to 10 km. Three different emission scenarios are applied up to 2100, two of them limiting the global mean temperature increase to 1.5 ◦ C and 2 ◦ C respectively and one of them assuming business-as-usual conditions (IPCC SRES RCP8.5 scenario). The simulations are extended to 2400 with the greenhouse gas and aerosol concentrations kept constant at 2100 levels, respectively, to be able to simulate the long-term implications of different global warming levels. |
format |
Conference Object |
author |
Semmler, Tido Rodehacke, Christian Gurses, Ozgur Pfeiffer, Madlene Barbi, Dirk Gierz, Paul Kleiner, Thomas Sutter, Johannes Wang, Qiang Jung, Thomas Lohmann, Gerrit |
spellingShingle |
Semmler, Tido Rodehacke, Christian Gurses, Ozgur Pfeiffer, Madlene Barbi, Dirk Gierz, Paul Kleiner, Thomas Sutter, Johannes Wang, Qiang Jung, Thomas Lohmann, Gerrit Reaching the 1.5 degree limit: what does it mean for West Antarctica and the global mean sea level? |
author_facet |
Semmler, Tido Rodehacke, Christian Gurses, Ozgur Pfeiffer, Madlene Barbi, Dirk Gierz, Paul Kleiner, Thomas Sutter, Johannes Wang, Qiang Jung, Thomas Lohmann, Gerrit |
author_sort |
Semmler, Tido |
title |
Reaching the 1.5 degree limit: what does it mean for West Antarctica and the global mean sea level? |
title_short |
Reaching the 1.5 degree limit: what does it mean for West Antarctica and the global mean sea level? |
title_full |
Reaching the 1.5 degree limit: what does it mean for West Antarctica and the global mean sea level? |
title_fullStr |
Reaching the 1.5 degree limit: what does it mean for West Antarctica and the global mean sea level? |
title_full_unstemmed |
Reaching the 1.5 degree limit: what does it mean for West Antarctica and the global mean sea level? |
title_sort |
reaching the 1.5 degree limit: what does it mean for west antarctica and the global mean sea level? |
publisher |
European Meteorological Society |
publishDate |
2017 |
url |
https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/46080/ https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/46080/1/ZUWEISS.pdf https://www.ems2017.eu/programme/how_to_access_the_programme.html https://hdl.handle.net/10013/epic.4d5f0a37-6514-45d8-8574-5d63e13322c0 https://hdl.handle.net/ |
geographic |
Antarctic West Antarctica Amundsen Sea West Antarctic Ice Sheet |
geographic_facet |
Antarctic West Antarctica Amundsen Sea West Antarctic Ice Sheet |
genre |
Amundsen Sea Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica Ice Sheet Sea ice West Antarctica |
genre_facet |
Amundsen Sea Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica Ice Sheet Sea ice West Antarctica |
op_source |
EPIC3EMS Annual Meeting 2017, Dublin, Ireland, 2017-09-04-2017-09-08Dublin, Ireland, European Meteorological Society |
op_relation |
https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/46080/1/ZUWEISS.pdf https://hdl.handle.net/ Semmler, T. orcid:0000-0002-2254-4901 , Rodehacke, C. orcid:0000-0003-3110-3857 , Gurses, O. orcid:0000-0002-0646-5760 , Pfeiffer, M. , Barbi, D. orcid:0000-0002-5053-1788 , Gierz, P. orcid:0000-0002-4512-087X , Kleiner, T. orcid:0000-0001-7825-5765 , Sutter, J. , Wang, Q. orcid:0000-0002-2704-5394 , Jung, T. orcid:0000-0002-2651-1293 and Lohmann, G. orcid:0000-0003-2089-733X (2017) Reaching the 1.5 degree limit: what does it mean for West Antarctica and the global mean sea level? , EMS Annual Meeting 2017, Dublin, Ireland, 4 September 2017 - 8 September 2017 . hdl:10013/epic.4d5f0a37-6514-45d8-8574-5d63e13322c0 |
_version_ |
1766378351540305920 |