The deepest geoid low on Earth and its possible relation to the instability of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet

• Main Authors: Steinberger, B., Grasnick, M., Ludwig, R.
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: English
• Published: 2023
• Subjects: Antarctic; Ross Sea; West Antarctic Ice Sheet; West Antarctica; Antarc*; Antarctica; Ice Sheet
• Online Access: https://gfzpublic.gfz-potsdam.de/pubman/item/item_5016369

The deepest geoid low globally w.r.t. hydrostatic equilibrium is in the Ross Sea area. Nearby in West Antarctica is a residual topography high. Both are in a region with thin lithosphere, where a mantle plume has been suggested. Hence upper mantle viscosity could be regionally reduced, allowing for faster rebound than elsewhere upon melting of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, one of the global climate system's tipping elements. To study possible causes of the geoid low / topography high combination, we compute the effects of disk-shaped density anomalies. With -1% density anomaly, geoid low and topography high can be explained with disk radius ~10° and depth range ~150-650km. Alternatively, there may be two separate disks somewhat laterally displaced, one just below the lithosphere and mainly causing a dynamic topography high and one below the transition zone causing the geoid low. In order to test the feasibility of such density models, we perform computations of a plume that enters at the base of a cartesian box corresponding to a region in the upper mantle, as well as some whole-mantle plume models, with ASPECT. However, these plume models have typically a narrow conduit and the plume tends to only become wider as it spreads beneath the lithosphere, typically shallower than ~300km, hence they would tend to rather under-predict the amplitude of the geoid compared to dynamic topography. We discuss how to possibly overcome the discrepancy between what is required to explain geoid and dynamic topography, and the outcome of numerical forward models.