Sensivity of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet to 2° Celsius of Warming. The SWAIS2C project.
- 1Institute of Geology und Paleontology - Earth System Science, University of Münster, Correnstr. 24, 48149 Münster, Germany
- 2Leibniz Institute for Applied Geophysics, Stilleweg 2, 30655 Hannover, Germany
- 3Imperial College London, South Kensington Campus, London SW7 2AZ, Great Britain
- 4GNS Science, 1 Fairway Drive, Lower Hutt 5040, New Zealand
- 5Antarctic Research Centre - Te Herenga Waka - Victoria University, Kelburn Parade, Wellington 6012, New Zealand
- 6Laboratory of Hydraulics, Hydrology and Glaciology (VAW) - ETH Zürich, Hönggerbergring 26, 8093 Zürich, Switzerland
- 7Institute of Geosciences, Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel, Ludewig-Meyn-Str. 14, 24118 Kiel, Germany
- 8Department of Geological Sciences and Environmental Studies, Binghamton University, 4400 Vestal Pkwy E, Vestal, NY 13850, U.S.A.
- *A full list of authors appears at the end of the abstract
The West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) is currently experiencing accelerated mass loss and contains enough ice to raise global sea levels by up to five meters if it were to melt completely. The objective of the international and interdisciplinary SWAIS2C project (Sensivity of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet to 2 Degrees Celsius of Warming) is to understand past and present factors influencing WAIS dynamics and to reconstruct WAIS response to warmer temperatures, including those exceeding the +2°C target outlined in the Paris Climate Agreement. The project will drill two deep boreholes beneath the Ross Ice Shelf to obtain sediment sequences from a site close to the grounding line of the Kamb Ice Stream site (KIS-3) and the Crary Ice Rise (CIR). The geological data will be used to improve model-based projections of future sea level contributions from Antarctica and to answer the overarching question under what climatic conditions the WAIS collapsed in the past.
Here we present an overview of the SWAIS2C project, its’a aims and current progress. In the first season 2023/24, hot water drilling was successfully completed at KIS-3 to penetrate the ~580 m thick Ross Ice Shelf. Oceanographic measurements were taken in the ~55 m ocean cavity beneath the ice shelf, together with videos of the seafloor and ice shelf, and installation of permanent moorings. Gravity and hammer coring yielded 7.6 m of sediment, which have been subsampled for microbiology and geochemistry, and described using field-based x-ray images. The sediments recovered include the longest sediment core from the Siple Cost, measuring 1.92 m.
The sedimentological and drilling experience gained will be of great value for the 2024/25 season, when a team of drillers and scientists will return to KIS-3 for deep drilling with the Antarctic Intermediate Depth Drill (AIDD). A combination of hydraulic piston coring and rotary coring will be used to retrieve a sediment core of up to 200 m below sea floor. Drilling operations will be complemented by geophysical downhole logging with wireline tools from the Leibniz Institute for Applied Geophysics (LIAG) and a logging while tripping system provided by the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ). The inclusion of different methods will allow downhole logging of several parameters over the entire sediment sequence and minimizes the influence of unstable borehole walls on the measurements.
Leanne Armand, Jeanine Ash, Jacqueline Austermann, Catherine Beltran, Mike Bentley, Craig Cary, Jason Coenen, Ester Colizza, Florence Colleoni, Giuseppe Cortese, Laura Crispini, Rob DeConto, Paola Del Carlo, Alessio Di Roberto, Justin Dodd, Bella Duncan, Gavin B. Dunbar, Olaf Eisen, José-Abel Flores, Fabio Florindo, Ed Gasson, Karsten Gohl, Nick Golledge, David M. Harwood, Huw Horgan, Angelika Humbert, Francisco J. Jimenez-Espejo, Liz Keller, Jung-Hyun Kim, Sunghan Kim, Jonathan Kingslake, Johann P. Klages, Nikola Koglin, Jochem Kück, Denise K. Kulhanek, Andreas Läufer, Jae II Lee, Amy Leventer, Richard H. Levy, Frank Lisker, Gerrit Lohmann, Dan Lowry, Rob McKay, Gesine Mollenhauer, Juliane Müller, Tim Naish, Pierre Offre, Christian Ohneiser, Molly O. Patterson, Joe Prebble, Sonia Sandroni, Francesca Sangiorgi, Osamu Seki, Louise Sime, James Smith, Anja Spang, Paolo Stocchi, Yusuke Suganuma, Tina van de Flierdt, Ryan Venturelli, Paul Winberry, Thomas Wonik, Kiho Yang, and Kyu-Cheul Yoo
How to cite: Ulfers, A., van de Flierdt, T., Levy, R., Dunbar, G., Horgan, H., Kulhanek, D., and Patterson, M. and the SWAIS2C Science Team: Sensivity of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet to 2° Celsius of Warming. The SWAIS2C project., EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-22323, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-22323, 2024.
