Assessing Antarctic Ice Sheet Dynamics and Sea Level Rise: Insights from PROTECT Model Intercomparison
- 1IGE, University Grenoble Alpes, Grenoble, France (cyrille.mosbeux@univ-grenoble-alpes.fr)
- 2University of Brussels, Brussels, Belgium
- 3Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands
- 4Potsdam Institue for Climate Impact (PIK), Potsdam, Germany
- 5University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom
- 6University of Swansea, Swansea, United Kingdom
- 7Kings's College London, London, United Kingdom
- 8NORCE, Bergen, Norway
- *A full list of authors appears at the end of the abstract
Mass loss from the Antarctic Ice Sheet is increasing, accelerating its contribution to global sea level rise. Projecting the future evolution of the Antarctic Ice Sheet but also better understanding the processes at play is therefore of major importance for the mitigation/adaptation of/to sea level rise.
Despite considerable advancements in the initialization of ice sheet models over the last decade, challenges persist in reproducing the observed trend in global Antarctic mass loss. This discrepancy between models and reality reflects in the large range of sea level projections in the recent Ice Sheet Model Intercomparison Project (ISMIP6). As part of the European H2020 project, PROTECT, we conducted Antarctic Ice Sheet simulations with six European ice-sheet models until 2150, focusing on the ability of the model to reproduce observations. These simulations were driven by a range of ocean and atmospheric forcings derived from Earth System models or downscaled by regional climate models under various Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs). Our experimental design enables us to sample climate forcing as well as model and parametric uncertainties, ensuring a comprehensive exploration of the future evolution of the Antarctic System and its contribution to sea level rise
Our simulations confirm that, regardless of the model used, the Amundsen sector is the region that will most likely dominate mass loss in the decades to come. In high emission scenarios (SSP5-8.5), a large increase in surface mass balance is also expected to temporarily overshadow acceleration in mass loss caused by ice-shelf basal melting. All the models show an acceleration in mass loss from the middle of the 22th century, following the significant increase in surface melting from the end of the 21st century for the SSP5-8.5 scenario. This emphasizes the pivotal role of surface melt in the long-term evolution of the Antarctic ice sheet and its contribution to sea level rise.
C. Mosbeux, N. Jourdain, G. Durand, F. Gillet-Chaulet, J. Caillet, V. Coulon, F. Pattyn, A.K. Klose, S. Scholl, R. Winkelmann, S. Cornford, S. Bevan, C.J. Berends, R. van de Wal, H. Goelzer, T. L. Edwards, F. Turner, Charles Amory, Christoph Kittel, Melchior van Wessem, Martin Oleson, Fredrik Boberg, Michiel van den Broeke, Ruth Mottram
How to cite: Mosbeux, C., Durand, G., Jourdain, N., Gillet-Chaulet, F., Caillet, J., Coulon, V., Pattyn, F., Schoell, S., Klose, A. K., Winkelman, R., Cornford, S., Bevan, S., Berends, T., van de Wal, R., Goelzer, H., Edwards, T., Turner, F., Amory, C., Kittel, C., and van den Broeke, M. and the PROTECT: Assessing Antarctic Ice Sheet Dynamics and Sea Level Rise: Insights from PROTECT Model Intercomparison, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-17095, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-17095, 2024.
