The Antarctic contribution to 21st century sea-level rise predicted by the UK Earth System Model with an interactive ice sheet
The Antarctic Ice Sheet will play a crucial role in the evolution of global mean sea-level as the climate warms. An interactively coupled climate and ice sheet model is needed to understand the impacts of ice—climate feedbacks during this evolution. Here we use a two-way coupling between the U.K. Ea...
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ftcopernicus:oai:publications.copernicus.org:tcd99769 2023-05-15T14:02:17+02:00 The Antarctic contribution to 21st century sea-level rise predicted by the UK Earth System Model with an interactive ice sheet Siahaan, Antony Smith, Robin Holland, Paul Jenkins, Adrian Gregory, Jonathan M. Lee, Victoria Mathiot, Pierre Payne, Tony Ridley, Jeff Jones, Colin 2021-12-21 application/pdf https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-2021-371 https://tc.copernicus.org/preprints/tc-2021-371/ eng eng doi:10.5194/tc-2021-371 https://tc.copernicus.org/preprints/tc-2021-371/ eISSN: 1994-0424 Text 2021 ftcopernicus https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-2021-371 2021-12-27T17:22:18Z The Antarctic Ice Sheet will play a crucial role in the evolution of global mean sea-level as the climate warms. An interactively coupled climate and ice sheet model is needed to understand the impacts of ice—climate feedbacks during this evolution. Here we use a two-way coupling between the U.K. Earth System Model and the BISICLES dynamic ice sheet model to investigate Antarctic ice—climate interactions under two climate change scenarios. We perform ensembles of SSP1-1.9 and SSP5-8.5 scenario simulations to 2100, which we believe are the first such simulations with a climate model with two-way coupling between both atmosphere and ocean models to dynamic models of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. In SSP1-1.9 simulations, ice shelf basal melting and grounded ice mass loss are generally lower than present rates during the entire simulation period. In contrast, the responses to SSP5-8.5 forcing are strong. By the end of 21st century, these simulations feature order-of-magnitude increases in basal melting of the Ross and Filchner-Ronne ice shelves, caused by intrusions of warm ocean water masses. Due to the slow response of ice sheet drawdown, this strong melting does not cause a substantial increase in ice discharge during the simulations. The surface mass balance in SSP5-8.5 simulations shows a pattern of strong decrease on ice shelves, caused by increased melting, and strong increase on grounded ice, caused by increased snowfall. Despite strong surface and basal melting of the ice shelves, increased snowfall dominates the mass budget of the grounded ice, leading to an ensemble-mean Antarctic contribution to global mean sea level of a fall of 22 mm by 2100 in the SSP5-8.5 scenario. We hypothesise that this signal would revert to sea-level rise on longer timescales, caused by the ice sheet dynamic response to ice shelf thinning. These results demonstrate the need for fully coupled ice—climate models in reducing the substantial uncertainty in sea-level rise from the Antarctic Ice Sheet. Text Antarc* Antarctic Greenland Ice Sheet Ice Shelf Ice Shelves Copernicus Publications: E-Journals Antarctic Greenland The Antarctic |
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Copernicus Publications: E-Journals |
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English |
description |
The Antarctic Ice Sheet will play a crucial role in the evolution of global mean sea-level as the climate warms. An interactively coupled climate and ice sheet model is needed to understand the impacts of ice—climate feedbacks during this evolution. Here we use a two-way coupling between the U.K. Earth System Model and the BISICLES dynamic ice sheet model to investigate Antarctic ice—climate interactions under two climate change scenarios. We perform ensembles of SSP1-1.9 and SSP5-8.5 scenario simulations to 2100, which we believe are the first such simulations with a climate model with two-way coupling between both atmosphere and ocean models to dynamic models of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. In SSP1-1.9 simulations, ice shelf basal melting and grounded ice mass loss are generally lower than present rates during the entire simulation period. In contrast, the responses to SSP5-8.5 forcing are strong. By the end of 21st century, these simulations feature order-of-magnitude increases in basal melting of the Ross and Filchner-Ronne ice shelves, caused by intrusions of warm ocean water masses. Due to the slow response of ice sheet drawdown, this strong melting does not cause a substantial increase in ice discharge during the simulations. The surface mass balance in SSP5-8.5 simulations shows a pattern of strong decrease on ice shelves, caused by increased melting, and strong increase on grounded ice, caused by increased snowfall. Despite strong surface and basal melting of the ice shelves, increased snowfall dominates the mass budget of the grounded ice, leading to an ensemble-mean Antarctic contribution to global mean sea level of a fall of 22 mm by 2100 in the SSP5-8.5 scenario. We hypothesise that this signal would revert to sea-level rise on longer timescales, caused by the ice sheet dynamic response to ice shelf thinning. These results demonstrate the need for fully coupled ice—climate models in reducing the substantial uncertainty in sea-level rise from the Antarctic Ice Sheet. |
format |
Text |
author |
Siahaan, Antony Smith, Robin Holland, Paul Jenkins, Adrian Gregory, Jonathan M. Lee, Victoria Mathiot, Pierre Payne, Tony Ridley, Jeff Jones, Colin |
spellingShingle |
Siahaan, Antony Smith, Robin Holland, Paul Jenkins, Adrian Gregory, Jonathan M. Lee, Victoria Mathiot, Pierre Payne, Tony Ridley, Jeff Jones, Colin The Antarctic contribution to 21st century sea-level rise predicted by the UK Earth System Model with an interactive ice sheet |
author_facet |
Siahaan, Antony Smith, Robin Holland, Paul Jenkins, Adrian Gregory, Jonathan M. Lee, Victoria Mathiot, Pierre Payne, Tony Ridley, Jeff Jones, Colin |
author_sort |
Siahaan, Antony |
title |
The Antarctic contribution to 21st century sea-level rise predicted by the UK Earth System Model with an interactive ice sheet |
title_short |
The Antarctic contribution to 21st century sea-level rise predicted by the UK Earth System Model with an interactive ice sheet |
title_full |
The Antarctic contribution to 21st century sea-level rise predicted by the UK Earth System Model with an interactive ice sheet |
title_fullStr |
The Antarctic contribution to 21st century sea-level rise predicted by the UK Earth System Model with an interactive ice sheet |
title_full_unstemmed |
The Antarctic contribution to 21st century sea-level rise predicted by the UK Earth System Model with an interactive ice sheet |
title_sort |
antarctic contribution to 21st century sea-level rise predicted by the uk earth system model with an interactive ice sheet |
publishDate |
2021 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-2021-371 https://tc.copernicus.org/preprints/tc-2021-371/ |
geographic |
Antarctic Greenland The Antarctic |
geographic_facet |
Antarctic Greenland The Antarctic |
genre |
Antarc* Antarctic Greenland Ice Sheet Ice Shelf Ice Shelves |
genre_facet |
Antarc* Antarctic Greenland Ice Sheet Ice Shelf Ice Shelves |
op_source |
eISSN: 1994-0424 |
op_relation |
doi:10.5194/tc-2021-371 https://tc.copernicus.org/preprints/tc-2021-371/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-2021-371 |
_version_ |
1766272478480433152 |