East Antarctic ice sheet most vulnerable to Weddell Sea warm

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TitleEast Antarctic ice sheet most vulnerable to Weddell Sea warmingAbstractModels predict considerable spatial variability in the magnitude of future climate change around Antarctica, suggesting that some sectors of the continent may be more affected by these changes than others. Furthermore, the geometry of the bedrock topography underlying the East and West Antarctic ice sheets, together with regional differences in ice thickness, mean that certain ice drainage basins may respond more or less sensitively to environmental forcings. Here we use an ensemble of idealized climates to drive ice-sheet simulations that explore regional and continental-scale thresholds, allowing us to identify a hierarchy of catchment vulnerabilities based on differences in long-term catchment-averaged ice loss. Considering this hierarchy in the context of recent observations and climate scenarios forecast for 2100 CE, we conclude that the majority of future ice loss from East Antarctica, both this century and over subsequent millennia, will likely come from the Recovery subglacial basin in the eastern Weddell Sea. Copyright2017. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved.AcknowledgementsE. Gasson, D. Kowalewski, C. Fogwill, and Z. Thomas are gratefully acknowledged for contributions to an earlier project from which this work subsequently evolved. C. Khroulev and PISM developers are thanked for valuable assistance with the ice sheet model. We are grateful to J. Sutter and an anonymous referee for comments that improved the clarity of the manuscript. This work was funded by contracts RDF-VUW1501 and VUW1203 of the Royal Society of New Zealand, with support from the Antarctic Research Centre (Victoria University of Wellington), New Zealand Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment contract CO5X1001, and GNS Science. Development of PISM is supported by NASA grants NNX13AM16G and NNX13AK27G. Data presented in this paper are available from the author on request.Funding DetailsGNSF, Georgian National Science Foundation; NNX13AK27G, NASA, National Aeronautics and Space Administration; NNX13AM16G, NASA, National Aeronautics and Space Administration; RDF-VUW1501, Royal Society of New Zealand; VUW1203, Royal Society of New Zealand

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1st AuthorGolledge, N.AuthorGolledge, N.Levy, R.McKay, R.Naish, T.Year2017JournalGeophysical Research LettersVolume44Number5Pages2343-2351DOI10.1002/2016GL072422URLhttps://www.scopus.com/inward/recor.....1c5ed1301b3f7e916350962bdKeywordsCatchmentsClimate changeClimate modelsGlaciersRunoff, AntarcticClimate scenariosEast antarctic ice sheetsIce sheetRegional differencesSpatial variabilityThresholdsWest antarctic ice sheets, IceAuthor KeywordsAntarcticclimate changeice sheetthresholds

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TypeArticleCitationGolledge, N., Levy, R., McKay, R. and Naish, T. (2017). East Antarctic ice sheet most vulnerable to Weddell Sea warming. Geophysical Research Letters, 44(5): 2343-2351 IdentifierGolledge2017Antarctica NZ supported?YesNZARI?No

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Naish, T.