A new study lead by Ph.D. student Melissa Hansen published in Paleoceanography sheds light on the behavior of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet in a warming world. The Antarctic Ice Sheet is the largest in the world and it
has some vulnerable areas where
the ice lies below sea level. Today, under the current warming climate, Antarctica
is gaining mass at the top due to an increase in snow accumulation, but it is
melting from below where warmer ocean water melts the ice. In East Antarctica,
snow accumulation exceeds the melt from below, but recent studies have
suggested that the future may be different. Ms. Hansen and her co-authors show
that when ocean temperatures around Antarctica rose to more than 3 degrees C during
past warm periods, the ice mass changed from one purging icebergs into the ocean
following glacial rhythms to one with a very different dynamic. These results confirm
earlier studies that the East Antarctic Ice Sheet might not be as stable under warmer
conditions with consequences for predictions of future sea level rise.
