2024 Events

Speaker: Ann Kristin Klose

Long-term sea-level commitment and reversibility of ice loss from Antarctica

The evolution of the Antarctic Ice Sheet is of vital importance given the coastal and societal implications of ice loss, with a potential to raise sea level by up to 58 m if melted entirely. However, future ice-sheet trajectories remain highly uncertain. In fact, current estimates range from a slight mass gain to a mass loss of the Antarctic Ice Sheet by the end of this century. What is more, due to ice-sheet inertia and potentially self-sustained mass loss when exceeding critical thresholds or tipping points, the bulk of sea-level rise is expected to arise beyond the end of this century as sea-level commitment. Here, we systematically assess this long-term committed sea-level contribution from the Antarctic Ice Sheet in response to warming projected over the next centuries under lower- and higher-emission pathways, as well as the reversibility of the committed large-scale ice-sheet changes when reducing warming to relatively colder climate conditions. [more]
Go to Editor View