Has the (West) Antarctic Ice Sheet already tipped?
Date:
Oral presentation (session CR3.2 Ice-sheet and climate interactions) at the EGU General Assembly 2023 in Vienna, Austria.
Abstract
Observations of ocean-driven grounding line retreat in the Amundsen Sea Embayment in Antarctica raise the question of an imminent collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Here we analyse the committed evolution of Antarctic grounding lines under the present-day climate. To this aim, we run an ensemble of historical simulations with a state-of-the-art ice sheet model to create model instances of possible present-day ice sheet configurations. Then, we extend the simulations to investigate their evolution under constant present-day climate forcing and bathymetry. We test for reversibility of grounding line movement at different stages of the simulations to analyse when and where irreversible grounding line retreat, or tipping, is initiated.