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Solid Earth change and the evolution of the Antarctic Ice Sheet

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posted on 2023-05-20, 00:22 authored by Whitehouse, PL, Gomez, N, Matt KingMatt King, Wiens, DA
Recent studies suggest that Antarctica has the potential to contribute up to ∼15 m of sea-level rise over the next few centuries. The evolution of the Antarctic Ice Sheet is driven by a combination of climate forcing and non-climatic feedbacks. In this review we focus on feedbacks between the Antarctic Ice Sheet and the solid Earth, and the role of these feedbacks in shaping the response of the ice sheet to past and future climate changes. The growth and decay of the Antarctic Ice Sheet reshapes the solid Earth via isostasy and erosion. In turn, the shape of the bed exerts a fundamental control on ice dynamics as well as the position of the grounding line - the location where ice starts to float. A complicating issue is the fact that Antarctica is situated on a region of the Earth that displays large spatial variations in rheological properties. These properties affect the timescale and strength of feedbacks between ice-sheet change and solid Earth deformation, and hence must be accounted for when considering the future evolution of the ice sheet.

History

Publication title

Nature Communications

Volume

10

Article number

503

Number

503

Pagination

1-14

ISSN

2041-1723

Department/School

School of Geography, Planning and Spatial Sciences

Publisher

Nature Publishing Group

Place of publication

United Kingdom

Rights statement

© The Author(s) 2019. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Repository Status

  • Open

Socio-economic Objectives

Expanding knowledge in the earth sciences

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