Stabilizing the West Antarctic Ice Sheet by surface mass deposition

There is evidence that a self-sustaining ice discharge from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) has started, potentially leading to its disintegration. The associated sea level rise of more than 3m would pose a serious challenge to highly populated areas including metropolises such as Calcutta, Shan...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Feldmann, Johannes, Levermann, Anders, Mengel, Matthias
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Washington, DC [u.a.] : Assoc. 2019
Subjects:
Ice
500
Online Access:https://oa.tib.eu/renate/handle/123456789/10357
https://doi.org/10.34657/9393
Description
Summary:There is evidence that a self-sustaining ice discharge from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) has started, potentially leading to its disintegration. The associated sea level rise of more than 3m would pose a serious challenge to highly populated areas including metropolises such as Calcutta, Shanghai, New York City, and Tokyo. Here, we show that the WAIS may be stabilized through mass deposition in coastal regions around Pine Island and Thwaites glaciers. In our numerical simulations, a minimum of 7400 Gt of additional snowfall stabilizes the flow if applied over a short period of 10 years onto the region (−2 mm year−1 sea level equivalent). Mass deposition at a lower rate increases the intervention time and the required total amount of snow. We find that the precise conditions of such an operation are crucial, and potential benefits need to be weighed against environmental hazards, future risks, and enormous technical challenges. Copyright © 2019 The Authors, publishedVersion