Century-scale simulations of the response of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet to a warming climate
Journal Article The Supplement related to this article is available online at: doi:10.5194/tcd-0-1-2015-supplement. We use the BISICLES adaptive mesh ice sheet model to carry out one, two, and three century simulations of the fast-flowing ice streams of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, deploying sub-ki...
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Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/10871/18322 https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-9-1579-2015 |
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ftunivexeter:oai:ore.exeter.ac.uk:10871/18322 2023-05-15T13:23:56+02:00 Century-scale simulations of the response of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet to a warming climate Cornford, Stephen Leslie Martin, DF Payne, AJ Ng, EG Le Brocq, A.M. Gladstone, RM Edwards, TL Shannon, SR Agosta, C Van Den Broeke, MR Hellmer, HH Krinner, G Ligtenberg, SRM Timmermann, R Vaughan, DG 2015 http://hdl.handle.net/10871/18322 https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-9-1579-2015 eng eng Copernicus GmbH Vol. 9, pp. 1579 - 1600 doi:10.5194/tc-9-1579-2015 NE/G012733/2 http://hdl.handle.net/10871/18322 1994-0416 Cryosphere Creative Commons Attribution License 3.0 CC-BY Article 2015 ftunivexeter https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-9-1579-2015 2022-11-20T21:31:17Z Journal Article The Supplement related to this article is available online at: doi:10.5194/tcd-0-1-2015-supplement. We use the BISICLES adaptive mesh ice sheet model to carry out one, two, and three century simulations of the fast-flowing ice streams of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, deploying sub-kilometer resolution around the grounding line since coarser resolution results in substantial underestimation of the response. Each of the simulations begins with a geometry and velocity close to present-day observations, and evolves according to variation in meteoric ice accumulation rates and oceanic ice shelf melt rates. Future changes in accumulation and melt rates range from no change, through anomalies computed by atmosphere and ocean models driven by the E1 and A1B emissions scenarios, to spatially uniform melt rate anomalies that remove most of the ice shelves over a few centuries. We find that variation in the resulting ice dynamics is dominated by the choice of initial conditions and ice shelf melt rate and mesh resolution, although ice accumulation affects the net change in volume above flotation to a similar degree. Given sufficient melt rates, we compute grounding line retreat over hundreds of kilometers in every major ice stream, but the ocean models do not predict such melt rates outside of the Amundsen Sea Embayment until after 2100. Within the Amundsen Sea Embayment the largest single source of variability is the onset of sustained retreat in Thwaites Glacier, which can triple the rate of eustatic sea level rise. Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Article in Journal/Newspaper Amundsen Sea Antarc* Antarctic Ice Sheet Ice Shelf Ice Shelves Thwaites Glacier University of Exeter: Open Research Exeter (ORE) Amundsen Sea Antarctic Thwaites Glacier ENVELOPE(-106.750,-106.750,-75.500,-75.500) West Antarctic Ice Sheet The Cryosphere 9 4 1579 1600 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
University of Exeter: Open Research Exeter (ORE) |
op_collection_id |
ftunivexeter |
language |
English |
description |
Journal Article The Supplement related to this article is available online at: doi:10.5194/tcd-0-1-2015-supplement. We use the BISICLES adaptive mesh ice sheet model to carry out one, two, and three century simulations of the fast-flowing ice streams of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, deploying sub-kilometer resolution around the grounding line since coarser resolution results in substantial underestimation of the response. Each of the simulations begins with a geometry and velocity close to present-day observations, and evolves according to variation in meteoric ice accumulation rates and oceanic ice shelf melt rates. Future changes in accumulation and melt rates range from no change, through anomalies computed by atmosphere and ocean models driven by the E1 and A1B emissions scenarios, to spatially uniform melt rate anomalies that remove most of the ice shelves over a few centuries. We find that variation in the resulting ice dynamics is dominated by the choice of initial conditions and ice shelf melt rate and mesh resolution, although ice accumulation affects the net change in volume above flotation to a similar degree. Given sufficient melt rates, we compute grounding line retreat over hundreds of kilometers in every major ice stream, but the ocean models do not predict such melt rates outside of the Amundsen Sea Embayment until after 2100. Within the Amundsen Sea Embayment the largest single source of variability is the onset of sustained retreat in Thwaites Glacier, which can triple the rate of eustatic sea level rise. Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Cornford, Stephen Leslie Martin, DF Payne, AJ Ng, EG Le Brocq, A.M. Gladstone, RM Edwards, TL Shannon, SR Agosta, C Van Den Broeke, MR Hellmer, HH Krinner, G Ligtenberg, SRM Timmermann, R Vaughan, DG |
spellingShingle |
Cornford, Stephen Leslie Martin, DF Payne, AJ Ng, EG Le Brocq, A.M. Gladstone, RM Edwards, TL Shannon, SR Agosta, C Van Den Broeke, MR Hellmer, HH Krinner, G Ligtenberg, SRM Timmermann, R Vaughan, DG Century-scale simulations of the response of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet to a warming climate |
author_facet |
Cornford, Stephen Leslie Martin, DF Payne, AJ Ng, EG Le Brocq, A.M. Gladstone, RM Edwards, TL Shannon, SR Agosta, C Van Den Broeke, MR Hellmer, HH Krinner, G Ligtenberg, SRM Timmermann, R Vaughan, DG |
author_sort |
Cornford, Stephen Leslie |
title |
Century-scale simulations of the response of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet to a warming climate |
title_short |
Century-scale simulations of the response of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet to a warming climate |
title_full |
Century-scale simulations of the response of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet to a warming climate |
title_fullStr |
Century-scale simulations of the response of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet to a warming climate |
title_full_unstemmed |
Century-scale simulations of the response of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet to a warming climate |
title_sort |
century-scale simulations of the response of the west antarctic ice sheet to a warming climate |
publisher |
Copernicus GmbH |
publishDate |
2015 |
url |
http://hdl.handle.net/10871/18322 https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-9-1579-2015 |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(-106.750,-106.750,-75.500,-75.500) |
geographic |
Amundsen Sea Antarctic Thwaites Glacier West Antarctic Ice Sheet |
geographic_facet |
Amundsen Sea Antarctic Thwaites Glacier West Antarctic Ice Sheet |
genre |
Amundsen Sea Antarc* Antarctic Ice Sheet Ice Shelf Ice Shelves Thwaites Glacier |
genre_facet |
Amundsen Sea Antarc* Antarctic Ice Sheet Ice Shelf Ice Shelves Thwaites Glacier |
op_relation |
Vol. 9, pp. 1579 - 1600 doi:10.5194/tc-9-1579-2015 NE/G012733/2 http://hdl.handle.net/10871/18322 1994-0416 Cryosphere |
op_rights |
Creative Commons Attribution License 3.0 |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-9-1579-2015 |
container_title |
The Cryosphere |
container_volume |
9 |
container_issue |
4 |
container_start_page |
1579 |
op_container_end_page |
1600 |
_version_ |
1766376434403639296 |