Climatic Drivers of Past Antarctic Ice Sheet Evolution Add Nonlinearly

Abstract:

The Antarctic ice sheet has varied substantially in shape and volume in the past, with evidence for strong regional differences in evolution history. Recent observations of change in the Antarctic environment indicate that different regions respond differently to ongoing changes in global climate -- over the West Antarctic Ice Sheet strong increases in sub-shelf melt rates indicate a sensitivity to changes in ocean temperature and circulation, while in East Antarctica the mass balance is increasingly positive due to an increase in accumulation in response to rising temperatures. Modeling the long term evolution of the Antarctic ice sheet can help address questions about its regional sensitivity to external forcing.

We have conducted experiments with an established ice sheet model over the last eight glacial cycles using spatially and temporally varying climate forcing from an EMIC. These simulations indicate a glacial-interglacial amplitude of ~11m SLE. Using a series of sensitivity experiments we address the dominant climatic forcing of this evolution. While sea level changes are the main driver of grounding line movement, they alone are not sufficient to explain the full glacial amplitude. Local insolation changes contribute to the initiation of terminations, while accumulation and sub-shelf melt changes feed back positively and negatively respectively onto the ice sheet evolution. This implies that climatic drivers add nonlinearly and the full spectrum of climate forcing needs to be considered when evaluating the sensitivity of the Antarctic ice sheet to past and future climate change.