Overshooting the critical threshold for the Greenland ice sheet
Melting of the Greenland ice sheet (GrIS) in response to anthropogenic global warming poses a severe threat in terms of global sea-level rise (SLR)1 . Modelling and palaeoclimate evidence suggest that rapidly increasing temperatures in the Arctic can trigger positive feedback mechanisms for the GrIS...
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Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/10037/31590 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06503-9 |
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ftunivtroemsoe:oai:munin.uit.no:10037/31590 2023-11-12T04:13:20+01:00 Overshooting the critical threshold for the Greenland ice sheet Bochow, Nils Poltronieri, Anna Robinson, Alexander Montoya, Marisa Rypdal, Martin Wibe Boers, Niklas 2023-10-18 https://hdl.handle.net/10037/31590 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06503-9 eng eng Springer Nature Nature info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/H2020/820970/EU/Tipping Points in the Earth System/TiPES/ info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/H2020/956170/EU/Multiscales and Critical Transitions in the Earth System/CriticalEarth/ Bochow, Poltronieri, Robinson, Montoya, Rypdal, Boers. Overshooting the critical threshold for the Greenland ice sheet. Nature. 2023 FRIDAID 2186143 doi:10.1038/s41586-023-06503-9 0028-0836 1476-4687 https://hdl.handle.net/10037/31590 Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) openAccess Copyright 2023 The Author(s) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 Journal article Tidsskriftartikkel Peer reviewed publishedVersion 2023 ftunivtroemsoe https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06503-9 2023-10-25T23:07:51Z Melting of the Greenland ice sheet (GrIS) in response to anthropogenic global warming poses a severe threat in terms of global sea-level rise (SLR)1 . Modelling and palaeoclimate evidence suggest that rapidly increasing temperatures in the Arctic can trigger positive feedback mechanisms for the GrIS, leading to self-sustained melting 2–4 , and the GrIS has been shown to permit several stable states 5 . Critical transitions are expected when the global mean temperature (GMT) crosses specifc thresholds, with substantial hysteresis between the stable states 6 . Here we use two independent ice-sheet models to investigate the impact of diferent overshoot scenarios with varying peak and convergence temperatures for a broad range of warming and subsequent cooling rates. Our results show that the maximum GMT and the time span of overshooting given GMT targets are critical in determining GrIS stability. We fnd a threshold GMT between 1.7 °C and 2.3 °C above preindustrial levels for an abrupt ice-sheet loss. GrIS loss can be substantially mitigated, even for maximum GMTs of 6 °C or more above preindustrial levels, if the GMT is subsequently reduced to less than 1.5 °C above preindustrial levels within a few centuries. However, our results also show that even temporarily overshooting the temperature threshold, without a transition to a new ice-sheet state, still leads to a peak in SLR of up to several metres. Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic Global warming Greenland Ice Sheet University of Tromsø: Munin Open Research Archive Arctic Greenland Nature 622 7983 528 536 |
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Open Polar |
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University of Tromsø: Munin Open Research Archive |
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ftunivtroemsoe |
language |
English |
description |
Melting of the Greenland ice sheet (GrIS) in response to anthropogenic global warming poses a severe threat in terms of global sea-level rise (SLR)1 . Modelling and palaeoclimate evidence suggest that rapidly increasing temperatures in the Arctic can trigger positive feedback mechanisms for the GrIS, leading to self-sustained melting 2–4 , and the GrIS has been shown to permit several stable states 5 . Critical transitions are expected when the global mean temperature (GMT) crosses specifc thresholds, with substantial hysteresis between the stable states 6 . Here we use two independent ice-sheet models to investigate the impact of diferent overshoot scenarios with varying peak and convergence temperatures for a broad range of warming and subsequent cooling rates. Our results show that the maximum GMT and the time span of overshooting given GMT targets are critical in determining GrIS stability. We fnd a threshold GMT between 1.7 °C and 2.3 °C above preindustrial levels for an abrupt ice-sheet loss. GrIS loss can be substantially mitigated, even for maximum GMTs of 6 °C or more above preindustrial levels, if the GMT is subsequently reduced to less than 1.5 °C above preindustrial levels within a few centuries. However, our results also show that even temporarily overshooting the temperature threshold, without a transition to a new ice-sheet state, still leads to a peak in SLR of up to several metres. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Bochow, Nils Poltronieri, Anna Robinson, Alexander Montoya, Marisa Rypdal, Martin Wibe Boers, Niklas |
spellingShingle |
Bochow, Nils Poltronieri, Anna Robinson, Alexander Montoya, Marisa Rypdal, Martin Wibe Boers, Niklas Overshooting the critical threshold for the Greenland ice sheet |
author_facet |
Bochow, Nils Poltronieri, Anna Robinson, Alexander Montoya, Marisa Rypdal, Martin Wibe Boers, Niklas |
author_sort |
Bochow, Nils |
title |
Overshooting the critical threshold for the Greenland ice sheet |
title_short |
Overshooting the critical threshold for the Greenland ice sheet |
title_full |
Overshooting the critical threshold for the Greenland ice sheet |
title_fullStr |
Overshooting the critical threshold for the Greenland ice sheet |
title_full_unstemmed |
Overshooting the critical threshold for the Greenland ice sheet |
title_sort |
overshooting the critical threshold for the greenland ice sheet |
publisher |
Springer Nature |
publishDate |
2023 |
url |
https://hdl.handle.net/10037/31590 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06503-9 |
geographic |
Arctic Greenland |
geographic_facet |
Arctic Greenland |
genre |
Arctic Global warming Greenland Ice Sheet |
genre_facet |
Arctic Global warming Greenland Ice Sheet |
op_relation |
Nature info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/H2020/820970/EU/Tipping Points in the Earth System/TiPES/ info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/H2020/956170/EU/Multiscales and Critical Transitions in the Earth System/CriticalEarth/ Bochow, Poltronieri, Robinson, Montoya, Rypdal, Boers. Overshooting the critical threshold for the Greenland ice sheet. Nature. 2023 FRIDAID 2186143 doi:10.1038/s41586-023-06503-9 0028-0836 1476-4687 https://hdl.handle.net/10037/31590 |
op_rights |
Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) openAccess Copyright 2023 The Author(s) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06503-9 |
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Nature |
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622 |
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7983 |
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528 |
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536 |
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