Tectonic Movement and Sea-Level Rise

2012 ◽  
Vol 616-618 ◽  
pp. 52-55
Author(s):  
Fu Ping Zhong ◽  
Wei Feng Kou ◽  
Qiang Bian
Keyword(s):  
Heat Flow ◽  
Sea Level Rise ◽  
Sea Level ◽  
Basal Layer ◽  
Active Period ◽  
Tectonic Movement ◽  
The West ◽  
West Antarctic Ice Sheet ◽  
West Antarctic ◽  
The Earth

Recently, many strong magnitude earthquakes and volcanoes have taken place on earth, which reveals that the Earth perhaps in its active period of tectonic movement currently. The heat flow will increase during the active period of tectonic movement, and it can provide meltwater to lubricate the basal layer of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, which can leads to the sea-level rise.

scholarly journals Large ensemble modeling of last deglacial retreat of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet: comparison of simple and advanced statistical techniques

2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (11) ◽  
pp. 9925-9963 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Pollard ◽  
W. Chang ◽  
M. Haran ◽  
P. Applegate ◽  
R. DeConto
Keyword(s):  
Sea Level Rise ◽  
Sea Level ◽  
Ice Sheet ◽  
Large Ensemble ◽  
The West ◽  
West Antarctic Ice Sheet ◽  
West Antarctic ◽  
Parameter Ranges ◽  
Best Fit ◽  
Last Deglacial

Abstract. A 3-D hybrid ice-sheet model is applied to the last deglacial retreat of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet over the last ~ 20 000 years. A large ensemble of 625 model runs is used to calibrate the model to modern and geologic data, including reconstructed grounding lines, relative sea-level records, elevation-age data and uplift rates, with an aggregate score computed for each run that measures overall model-data misfit. Two types of statistical methods are used to analyze the large-ensemble results: simple averaging weighted by the aggregate score, and more advanced Bayesian techniques involving Gaussian process-based emulation and calibration, and Markov chain Monte Carlo. Results for best-fit parameter ranges and envelopes of equivalent sea-level rise with the simple averaging method agree quite well with the more advanced techniques, but only for a large ensemble with full factorial parameter sampling. Best-fit parameter ranges confirm earlier values expected from prior model tuning, including large basal sliding coefficients on modern ocean beds. Each run is extended 5000 years into the "future" with idealized ramped climate warming. In the majority of runs with reasonable scores, this produces grounding-line retreat deep into the West Antarctic interior, and the analysis provides sea-level-rise envelopes with well defined parametric uncertainty bounds.

Reassessment of the Potential Sea-Level Rise from a Collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet

Science ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 324 (5929) ◽  
pp. 901-903 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. L. Bamber ◽  
R. E. M. Riva ◽  
B. L. A. Vermeersen ◽  
A. M. LeBrocq
Keyword(s):  
Sea Level Rise ◽  
Sea Level ◽  
Ice Sheet ◽  
The West ◽  
Antarctic Ice Sheet ◽  
West Antarctic Ice Sheet ◽  
West Antarctic

scholarly journals Carbon choices determine US cities committed to futures below sea level

2015 ◽  
Vol 112 (44) ◽  
pp. 13508-13513 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin H. Strauss ◽  
Scott Kulp ◽  
Anders Levermann
Keyword(s):  
Sea Level Rise ◽  
Sea Level ◽  
Carbon Emissions ◽  
Ice Sheet ◽  
The West ◽  
Antarctic Ice Sheet ◽  
West Antarctic Ice Sheet ◽  
West Antarctic ◽  
Current Population

Anthropogenic carbon emissions lock in long-term sea-level rise that greatly exceeds projections for this century, posing profound challenges for coastal development and cultural legacies. Analysis based on previously published relationships linking emissions to warming and warming to rise indicates that unabated carbon emissions up to the year 2100 would commit an eventual global sea-level rise of 4.3–9.9 m. Based on detailed topographic and population data, local high tide lines, and regional long-term sea-level commitment for different carbon emissions and ice sheet stability scenarios, we compute the current population living on endangered land at municipal, state, and national levels within the United States. For unabated climate change, we find that land that is home to more than 20 million people is implicated and is widely distributed among different states and coasts. The total area includes 1,185–1,825 municipalities where land that is home to more than half of the current population would be affected, among them at least 21 cities exceeding 100,000 residents. Under aggressive carbon cuts, more than half of these municipalities would avoid this commitment if the West Antarctic Ice Sheet remains stable. Similarly, more than half of the US population-weighted area under threat could be spared. We provide lists of implicated cities and state populations for different emissions scenarios and with and without a certain collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Although past anthropogenic emissions already have caused sea-level commitment that will force coastal cities to adapt, future emissions will determine which areas we can continue to occupy or may have to abandon.

Towards investigating the race of two Marine Ice instabilities: Sheet vs. Cliff

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tanja Schlemm ◽  
Anders Levermann
Keyword(s):  
Sea Level Rise ◽  
Sea Level ◽  
Ice Sheet ◽  
Glacier Retreat ◽  
The West ◽  
Amundsen Sea ◽  
West Antarctic Ice Sheet ◽  
Ice Shelves ◽  
West Antarctic ◽  
Near Future

<p>Due to ocean warming in the Amundsen sea, pine island glacier and thwaites glacier could lose their buttressing ice shelves in the near future. This would lead to glacier retreat through the marine ice sheet instability and could be accelerated by additional cliff calving (marine ice cliff instability). Using the Parallel Ice Sheet Model (PISM-PIK) we investigate this in a regional setup of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. We remove floating ice in the Amundsen sea and investigate the resulting glacier retreat without additional cliff calving and with cliff calving with a range of maximum calving rates. We find that without additional cliff calving, the removal of the ice shelves in the Amundsen sea leads to a glacier retreat that is equivalent to 0.4-0.6m of sea level rise in 100 years, consistent with earlier simulations of other models (ABUMIP and LARMIP-2). Cliff calving can more than double this number.</p>

scholarly journals Antarctic Ice-Sheet Volume at 18000 Years B.P. and Holocene Sea-Level Changes at the West Antarctic Margin

1979 ◽  
Vol 24 (90) ◽  
pp. 213-230 ◽  
Author(s):  
Craig S. Lingle ◽  
James A. Clark
Keyword(s):  
Sea Level Rise ◽  
Sea Level ◽  
Ice Sheet ◽  
Sea Level Changes ◽  
Ice Shelf ◽  
Relative Sea Level ◽  
Antarctic Ice Sheet ◽  
West Antarctic Ice Sheet ◽  
West Antarctic ◽  
The Antarctic

AbstractThe Antarctic ice sheet has been reconstructed at 18000 years b.p. by Hughes and others (in press) using an ice-flow model. The volume of the portion of this reconstruction which contributed to a rise of post-glacial eustatic sea-level has been calculated and found to be (9.8±1.5) × 106 km3. This volume is equivalent to 25±4 m of eustatic sea-level rise, defined as the volume of water added to the ocean divided by ocean area. The total volume of the reconstructed Antarctic ice sheet was found to be (37±6) × 106 km3. If the results of Hughes and others are correct, Antarctica was the second largest contributor to post-glacial eustatic sea-level rise after the Laurentide ice sheet. The Farrell and Clark (1976) model for computation of the relative sea-level changes caused by changes in ice and water loading on a visco-elastic Earth has been applied to the ice-sheet reconstruction, and the results have been combined with the changes in relative sea-level caused by Northern Hemisphere deglaciation as previously calculated by Clark and others (1978). Three families of curves have been compiled, showing calculated relative sea-level change at different times near the margin of the possibly unstable West Antarctic ice sheet in the Ross Sea, Pine Island Bay, and the Weddell Sea. The curves suggest that the West Antarctic ice sheet remained grounded to the edge of the continental shelf until c. 13000 years b.p., when the rate of sea-level rise due to northern ice disintegration became sufficient to dominate emergence near the margin predicted otherwise to have been caused by shrinkage of the Antarctic ice mass. In addition, the curves suggest that falling relative sea-levels played a significant role in slowing and, perhaps, reversing retreat when grounding lines approached their present positions in the Ross and Weddell Seas. A predicted fall of relative sea-level beneath the central Ross Ice Shelf of as much as 23 m during the past 2000 years is found to be compatible with recent field evidence that the ice shelf is thickening in the south-east quadrant.

scholarly journals Precipitation Ansatz dependent Future Sea Level Contribution by Antarctica based on CMIP5 Model Forcing

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian B. Rodehacke ◽  
Madlene Pfeiffer ◽  
Tido Semmler ◽  
Özgür Gurses ◽  
Thomas Kleiner
Keyword(s):  
Boundary Condition ◽  
Sea Level ◽  
Ice Sheet ◽  
Cmip5 Models ◽  
The West ◽  
Antarctic Ice Sheet ◽  
West Antarctic Ice Sheet ◽  
West Antarctic ◽  
Precipitation Boundary ◽  
Climate Forcings

Abstract. Various observational estimates indicate growing mass loss at Antarctica's margins but also heavier precipitation across the continent. In the future, heavier precipitation fallen on Antarctica will counteract any stronger iceberg discharge and increased basal melting of floating ice shelves driven by a warming ocean. Here, we use from nine CMIP5 models future projections, ranging from strong mitigation efforts to business-as-usual, to run an ensemble of ice-sheet simulations. We test, how the precipitation boundary condition determines Antarctica's sea-level contribution. The spatial and temporal varying climate forcings drive ice-sheet simulations. Hence, our ensemble inherits all spatial and temporal climate patterns, which is in contrast to a spatial mean forcing. Regardless of the applied boundary condition and forcing, some areas will lose ice in the future, such as the glaciers from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet draining into the Amundsen Sea. In general the simulated ice-sheet thickness grows in a broad marginal strip, where incoming storms deliver topographically controlled precipitation. This strip shows the largest ice thickness differences between the applied precipitation boundary conditions too. On average Antarctica's ice mass shrinks for all future scenarios if the precipitation is scaled by the spatial temperature anomalies coming from the CMIP5 models. In this approach, we use the relative precipitation increment per degree warming as invariant scaling constant. In contrast, Antarctica gains mass in our simulations if we apply the simulated precipitation anomalies of the CMIP5 models directly. Here, the scaling factors show a distinct spatial pattern across Antarctica. Furthermore, the diagnosed mean scaling across all considered climate forcings is larger than the values deduced from ice cores. In general, the scaling is higher across the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, lower across the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, and lowest around the Siple Coast. The latter is located on the east side of the Ross Ice Shelf.

scholarly journals Combustion of available fossil fuel resources sufficient to eliminate the Antarctic Ice Sheet

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (8) ◽  
pp. e1500589 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ricarda Winkelmann ◽  
Anders Levermann ◽  
Andy Ridgwell ◽  
Ken Caldeira
Keyword(s):  
Sea Level Rise ◽  
Sea Level ◽  
Carbon Emissions ◽  
Fossil Fuel ◽  
Ice Sheet ◽  
Antarctic Ice Sheet ◽  
West Antarctic Ice Sheet ◽  
West Antarctic ◽  
Global Sea Level ◽  
The Antarctic

The Antarctic Ice Sheet stores water equivalent to 58 m in global sea-level rise. We show in simulations using the Parallel Ice Sheet Model that burning the currently attainable fossil fuel resources is sufficient to eliminate the ice sheet. With cumulative fossil fuel emissions of 10,000 gigatonnes of carbon (GtC), Antarctica is projected to become almost ice-free with an average contribution to sea-level rise exceeding 3 m per century during the first millennium. Consistent with recent observations and simulations, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet becomes unstable with 600 to 800 GtC of additional carbon emissions. Beyond this additional carbon release, the destabilization of ice basins in both West and East Antarctica results in a threshold increase in global sea level. Unabated carbon emissions thus threaten the Antarctic Ice Sheet in its entirety with associated sea-level rise that far exceeds that of all other possible sources.

scholarly journals Uncertainty quantification of the multi-centennial response of the Antarctic Ice Sheet to climate change

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Bulthuis ◽  
Maarten Arnst ◽  
Sainan Sun ◽  
Frank Pattyn
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Sea Level Rise ◽  
Sea Level ◽  
Ice Sheet ◽  
Parametric Uncertainty ◽  
Antarctic Ice Sheet ◽  
West Antarctic Ice Sheet ◽  
Sources Of Uncertainty ◽  
West Antarctic ◽  
The Antarctic

Abstract. Ice loss from the Antarctic ice sheet (AIS) is expected to become the major contributor to sea-level rise in the next centuries. Projections of the AIS response to climate change based on numerical ice-sheet models remain challenging to establish due to the complexity of physical processes involved in ice-sheet dynamics, including instability mechanisms that can destabilise marine sectors with retrograde slopes. Moreover, uncertainties in ice-sheet models limit the ability to provide accurate sea-level rise projections. Here, we apply probabilistic methods to a hybrid ice-sheet model to investigate the influence of several sources of uncertainty, namely sources of uncertainty in atmospheric forcing, basal sliding, grounding-line flux parameterisation, calving, sub-shelf melting, ice-shelf rheology and bedrock relaxation, on the continental response of the Antarctic ice sheet to climate change over the next millennium. We provide probabilistic projections of sea-level rise and grounding-line retreat and we carry out stochastic sensitivity analyses to determine the most influential sources of uncertainty. We find that all sources of uncertainty, except perhaps the bedrock relaxation times, contribute to the uncertainty in the projections. We show that the sensitivity of the projections to uncertainties increases and the contribution of the uncertainty in sub-shelf melting to the uncertainty in the projections becomes more and more dominant as the scenario gets warmer. We show that the significance of the AIS contribution to sea-level rise is controlled by marine ice-sheet instability (MISI) in marine basins, with the biggest contribution stemming from the more vulnerable West Antarctic ice sheet. We find that, irrespectively of parametric uncertainty, the strongly mitigated RCP 2.6 scenario prevents the collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet, that in both RCP 4.5 and RCP 6.0 scenarios the occurrence of MISI in marine basins is more sensitive to parametric uncertainty and that, almost irrespectively of parametric uncertainty, RCP 8.5 triggers the collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet.

History, mass loss, structure, and dynamic behavior of the Antarctic Ice Sheet

Science ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 367 (6484) ◽  
pp. 1321-1325 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin E. Bell ◽  
Helene Seroussi
Keyword(s):  
Sea Level Rise ◽  
Sea Level ◽  
Ice Sheet ◽  
Satellite Measurements ◽  
Ice Flow ◽  
Antarctic Ice Sheet ◽  
West Antarctic Ice Sheet ◽  
Mountain Ranges ◽  
West Antarctic ◽  
The Antarctic

Antarctica contains most of Earth’s fresh water stored in two large ice sheets. The more stable East Antarctic Ice Sheet is larger and older, rests on higher topography, and hides entire mountain ranges and ancient lakes. The less stable West Antarctic Ice Sheet is smaller and younger and was formed on what was once a shallow sea. Recent observations made with several independent satellite measurements demonstrate that several regions of Antarctica are losing mass, flowing faster, and retreating where ice is exposed to warm ocean waters. The Antarctic contribution to sea level rise has reached ~8 millimeters since 1992. In the future, if warming ocean waters and increased surface meltwater trigger faster ice flow, sea level rise will accelerate.

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