Assessment of the Antarctic ice-sheet response to ice-shelf collapse as a function of the friction law employed

Sea-level rise projections under climate change exhibit large uncertainty related to the contribution of ice sheets. A major source of uncertainty is the Antarctic Ice-Sheet (AIS) due to the marine-based nature of the West Antarctic Ice-Sheet (WAIS). Part of the WAIS is grounded under sea level and thus in contact with the surrounding ocean via the floating ice shelves. Melting of ice shelves does not directly contribute to sea level rise but it modulates the ice flow towards the sea by controlling the discharge through the grounding line. However, the processes that regulate the dynamics are not fully well understood and represented in state-of-the-art models due to the complexity of the various feedbacks involved. In addition, the basal friction or sliding law that should be employed is not well known. In this context arose the Antarctic BUttressing Intercomparison Project (ABUMIP, Sun et al., 2020) with the aim of studying the response of the AIS to a sudden and maintained collapse of its ice shelves. Here we show the results obtained while performing experiments extending those of Sun et al., (2020) with the thermomechanical ice-sheet model Yelmo and assessing the effect of using different friction laws.