Contrasting Response of West and East Antarctic Ice Sheets to Glacial Isostatic Adjustment
The Antarctic ice sheet (AIS) lies on a solid Earth that displays large spatial variations in rheological properties, with a thin lithosphere and low-viscosity upper mantle (weak Earth structure) beneath West Antarctica and an opposing structure beneath East Antarctica. This contrast is known to hav...
Published in: | Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface |
---|---|
Main Authors: | , , , , , , |
Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
Language: | English |
Published: |
Wiley-Blackwell
2021
|
Subjects: | |
Online Access: | https://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/47216/ https://doi.org/10.1029/2020JF006003 https://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/47216/1/2020JF006003.pdf |
id |
ftunivnorthumb:oai:nrl.northumbria.ac.uk:47216 |
---|---|
record_format |
openpolar |
spelling |
ftunivnorthumb:oai:nrl.northumbria.ac.uk:47216 2023-05-15T13:44:52+02:00 Contrasting Response of West and East Antarctic Ice Sheets to Glacial Isostatic Adjustment Coulon, Violaine Bulthuis, Kevin Whitehouse, Pippa L. Sun, Sainan Haubner, Konstanze Zipf, Lars Pattyn, Frank 2021-07-18 text https://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/47216/ https://doi.org/10.1029/2020JF006003 https://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/47216/1/2020JF006003.pdf en eng Wiley-Blackwell https://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/47216/1/2020JF006003.pdf Coulon, Violaine, Bulthuis, Kevin, Whitehouse, Pippa L., Sun, Sainan, Haubner, Konstanze, Zipf, Lars and Pattyn, Frank (2021) Contrasting Response of West and East Antarctic Ice Sheets to Glacial Isostatic Adjustment. Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface, 126 (7). ISSN 2169-9003 cc_by_nc_nd_4_0 CC-BY-NC-ND F600 Geology F700 Ocean Sciences F800 Physical and Terrestrial Geographical and Environmental Sciences Article PeerReviewed 2021 ftunivnorthumb https://doi.org/10.1029/2020JF006003 2022-09-25T06:14:28Z The Antarctic ice sheet (AIS) lies on a solid Earth that displays large spatial variations in rheological properties, with a thin lithosphere and low-viscosity upper mantle (weak Earth structure) beneath West Antarctica and an opposing structure beneath East Antarctica. This contrast is known to have a significant impact on the ice-sheet grounding-line stability. Here, we embed within an ice-sheet model a modified glacial-isostatic Elastic Lithosphere-Relaxing Asthenosphere model that considers a dual pattern for the Earth structure beneath West and East Antarctica supplemented with an approximation of gravitationally consistent geoid changes, allowing to approximate near-field relative sea-level changes. We show that this elementary GIA model captures the essence of global Self-Gravitating Viscoelastic solid-Earth Models (SGVEMs) and compares well with both SGVEM outputs and geodetic observations, allowing to capture the essential features and processes influencing Antarctic grounding-line stability in a computationally efficient way. In this framework, we perform a probabilistic assessment of the impact of uncertainties in solid-Earth rheological properties on the response of the AIS to future warming. Results show that on multicentennial-to-millennial timescales, spatial variability in solid-Earth deformation plays a significant role in promoting the stability of the West Antarctic ice sheet (WAIS). However, WAIS collapse cannot be prevented under high-emissions climate scenarios. On longer timescales and for unmitigated climate scenarios, continent-wide mass loss projections may be underestimated because spatially uniform Earth models, as typically considered in numerical ice sheet models, will overestimate the stabilizing effect of GIA across East Antarctica, which is characterized by thick lithosphere and high upper-mantle viscosity. Article in Journal/Newspaper Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica East Antarctica Ice Sheet West Antarctica Northumbria University, Newcastle: Northumbria Research Link (NRL) Antarctic East Antarctica The Antarctic West Antarctic Ice Sheet West Antarctica Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface 126 7 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Northumbria University, Newcastle: Northumbria Research Link (NRL) |
op_collection_id |
ftunivnorthumb |
language |
English |
topic |
F600 Geology F700 Ocean Sciences F800 Physical and Terrestrial Geographical and Environmental Sciences |
spellingShingle |
F600 Geology F700 Ocean Sciences F800 Physical and Terrestrial Geographical and Environmental Sciences Coulon, Violaine Bulthuis, Kevin Whitehouse, Pippa L. Sun, Sainan Haubner, Konstanze Zipf, Lars Pattyn, Frank Contrasting Response of West and East Antarctic Ice Sheets to Glacial Isostatic Adjustment |
topic_facet |
F600 Geology F700 Ocean Sciences F800 Physical and Terrestrial Geographical and Environmental Sciences |
description |
The Antarctic ice sheet (AIS) lies on a solid Earth that displays large spatial variations in rheological properties, with a thin lithosphere and low-viscosity upper mantle (weak Earth structure) beneath West Antarctica and an opposing structure beneath East Antarctica. This contrast is known to have a significant impact on the ice-sheet grounding-line stability. Here, we embed within an ice-sheet model a modified glacial-isostatic Elastic Lithosphere-Relaxing Asthenosphere model that considers a dual pattern for the Earth structure beneath West and East Antarctica supplemented with an approximation of gravitationally consistent geoid changes, allowing to approximate near-field relative sea-level changes. We show that this elementary GIA model captures the essence of global Self-Gravitating Viscoelastic solid-Earth Models (SGVEMs) and compares well with both SGVEM outputs and geodetic observations, allowing to capture the essential features and processes influencing Antarctic grounding-line stability in a computationally efficient way. In this framework, we perform a probabilistic assessment of the impact of uncertainties in solid-Earth rheological properties on the response of the AIS to future warming. Results show that on multicentennial-to-millennial timescales, spatial variability in solid-Earth deformation plays a significant role in promoting the stability of the West Antarctic ice sheet (WAIS). However, WAIS collapse cannot be prevented under high-emissions climate scenarios. On longer timescales and for unmitigated climate scenarios, continent-wide mass loss projections may be underestimated because spatially uniform Earth models, as typically considered in numerical ice sheet models, will overestimate the stabilizing effect of GIA across East Antarctica, which is characterized by thick lithosphere and high upper-mantle viscosity. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Coulon, Violaine Bulthuis, Kevin Whitehouse, Pippa L. Sun, Sainan Haubner, Konstanze Zipf, Lars Pattyn, Frank |
author_facet |
Coulon, Violaine Bulthuis, Kevin Whitehouse, Pippa L. Sun, Sainan Haubner, Konstanze Zipf, Lars Pattyn, Frank |
author_sort |
Coulon, Violaine |
title |
Contrasting Response of West and East Antarctic Ice Sheets to Glacial Isostatic Adjustment |
title_short |
Contrasting Response of West and East Antarctic Ice Sheets to Glacial Isostatic Adjustment |
title_full |
Contrasting Response of West and East Antarctic Ice Sheets to Glacial Isostatic Adjustment |
title_fullStr |
Contrasting Response of West and East Antarctic Ice Sheets to Glacial Isostatic Adjustment |
title_full_unstemmed |
Contrasting Response of West and East Antarctic Ice Sheets to Glacial Isostatic Adjustment |
title_sort |
contrasting response of west and east antarctic ice sheets to glacial isostatic adjustment |
publisher |
Wiley-Blackwell |
publishDate |
2021 |
url |
https://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/47216/ https://doi.org/10.1029/2020JF006003 https://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/47216/1/2020JF006003.pdf |
geographic |
Antarctic East Antarctica The Antarctic West Antarctic Ice Sheet West Antarctica |
geographic_facet |
Antarctic East Antarctica The Antarctic West Antarctic Ice Sheet West Antarctica |
genre |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica East Antarctica Ice Sheet West Antarctica |
genre_facet |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica East Antarctica Ice Sheet West Antarctica |
op_relation |
https://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/47216/1/2020JF006003.pdf Coulon, Violaine, Bulthuis, Kevin, Whitehouse, Pippa L., Sun, Sainan, Haubner, Konstanze, Zipf, Lars and Pattyn, Frank (2021) Contrasting Response of West and East Antarctic Ice Sheets to Glacial Isostatic Adjustment. Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface, 126 (7). ISSN 2169-9003 |
op_rights |
cc_by_nc_nd_4_0 |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY-NC-ND |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1029/2020JF006003 |
container_title |
Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface |
container_volume |
126 |
container_issue |
7 |
_version_ |
1766207887118434304 |