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Two-timescale response of a large Antarctic ice shelf to climate change

A potentially irreversible threshold in Antarctic ice shelf melting would be crossed if the ocean cavity beneath the large Filchner–Ronne Ice Shelf were to become flooded with warm water from the deep ocean. Previous studies have identified this possibility, but there is great uncertainty as to how...

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Autores principales: Naughten, Kaitlin A., De Rydt, Jan, Rosier, Sebastian H. R., Jenkins, Adrian, Holland, Paul R., Ridley, Jeff K.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8012367/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33790289
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-22259-0
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author Naughten, Kaitlin A.
De Rydt, Jan
Rosier, Sebastian H. R.
Jenkins, Adrian
Holland, Paul R.
Ridley, Jeff K.
author_facet Naughten, Kaitlin A.
De Rydt, Jan
Rosier, Sebastian H. R.
Jenkins, Adrian
Holland, Paul R.
Ridley, Jeff K.
author_sort Naughten, Kaitlin A.
collection PubMed
description A potentially irreversible threshold in Antarctic ice shelf melting would be crossed if the ocean cavity beneath the large Filchner–Ronne Ice Shelf were to become flooded with warm water from the deep ocean. Previous studies have identified this possibility, but there is great uncertainty as to how easily it could occur. Here, we show, using a coupled ice sheet-ocean model forced by climate change scenarios, that any increase in ice shelf melting is likely to be preceded by an extended period of reduced melting. Climate change weakens the circulation beneath the ice shelf, leading to colder water and reduced melting. Warm water begins to intrude into the cavity when global mean surface temperatures rise by approximately 7 °C above pre-industrial, which is unlikely to occur this century. However, this result should not be considered evidence that the region is unconditionally stable. Unless global temperatures plateau, increased melting will eventually prevail.
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spelling pubmed-80123672021-04-16 Two-timescale response of a large Antarctic ice shelf to climate change Naughten, Kaitlin A. De Rydt, Jan Rosier, Sebastian H. R. Jenkins, Adrian Holland, Paul R. Ridley, Jeff K. Nat Commun Article A potentially irreversible threshold in Antarctic ice shelf melting would be crossed if the ocean cavity beneath the large Filchner–Ronne Ice Shelf were to become flooded with warm water from the deep ocean. Previous studies have identified this possibility, but there is great uncertainty as to how easily it could occur. Here, we show, using a coupled ice sheet-ocean model forced by climate change scenarios, that any increase in ice shelf melting is likely to be preceded by an extended period of reduced melting. Climate change weakens the circulation beneath the ice shelf, leading to colder water and reduced melting. Warm water begins to intrude into the cavity when global mean surface temperatures rise by approximately 7 °C above pre-industrial, which is unlikely to occur this century. However, this result should not be considered evidence that the region is unconditionally stable. Unless global temperatures plateau, increased melting will eventually prevail. Nature Publishing Group UK 2021-03-31 /pmc/articles/PMC8012367/ /pubmed/33790289 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-22259-0 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Article
Naughten, Kaitlin A.
De Rydt, Jan
Rosier, Sebastian H. R.
Jenkins, Adrian
Holland, Paul R.
Ridley, Jeff K.
Two-timescale response of a large Antarctic ice shelf to climate change
title Two-timescale response of a large Antarctic ice shelf to climate change
title_full Two-timescale response of a large Antarctic ice shelf to climate change
title_fullStr Two-timescale response of a large Antarctic ice shelf to climate change
title_full_unstemmed Two-timescale response of a large Antarctic ice shelf to climate change
title_short Two-timescale response of a large Antarctic ice shelf to climate change
title_sort two-timescale response of a large antarctic ice shelf to climate change
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8012367/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33790289
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-22259-0
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