Antarctic ice sheet
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The Antarctic ice sheet is a continental glacier covering 98% of the Antarctic continent, with an area of Template:Convert and an average thickness of over Template:Convert. It is the largest of Earth's two current ice sheets, containing Template:Convert of ice, which is equivalent to 61% of all fresh water on Earth. Its surface is nearly continuous, and the only ice-free areas on the continent are the dry valleys, nunataks of the Antarctic mountain ranges, and sparse coastal bedrock. However, it is often subdivided into the East Antarctic ice sheet (EAIS), West Antarctic ice sheet (WAIS), and Antarctic Peninsula (AP), due to the large differences in topography, ice flow, and glacier mass balance between the three regions.
Because the East Antarctic ice sheet is over 10 times larger than the West Antarctic ice sheet and located at a higher elevation, it is less vulnerable to climate change than the WAIS. In the 20th century, EAIS had been one of the only places on Earth which displayed limited cooling instead of warming, even as the WAIS warmed by over 0.1 °C/decade from 1950s to 2000, with an average warming trend of >0.05 °C/decade since 1957 across the whole continent. As of early 2020s, there is still net mass gain over the EAIS (due to increased precipitation freezing on top of the ice sheet), yet the ice loss from the WAIS glaciers such as Thwaites and Pine Island Glacier is far greater.
By 2100, net ice loss from Antarctica alone would add around Template:Convert to the global sea level rise. Further, the way WAIS is located deep below the sea level leaves it vulnerable to marine ice sheet instability, which is difficult to simulate in ice sheet models. If instability is triggered before 2100, it has the potential to increase total sea level rise caused by Antarctica by tens of centimeters more, particularly with high overall warming. Ice loss from Antarctica also generates fresh meltwater, at a rate of 1100–1500 billion tons (GT) per year. This meltwater dilutes the saline Antarctic bottom water, which weakens the lower cell of the Southern Ocean overturning circulation and may even contribute to its collapse, although this will likely take place over multiple centuries.
Paleoclimate research and improved modelling show that the West Antarctic ice sheet is very likely to disappear even if the warming does not progress any further, and only reducing the warming to Template:Convert below the temperature of 2020 may save it. It is believed that the loss of the ice sheet would take between 2,000 and 13,000 years, although several centuries of high emissions may shorten this to 500 years. Template:Convert of sea level rise would occur if the ice sheet collapses but leaves ice caps on the mountains behind, and Template:Convert if those melt as well. Isostatic rebound may also add around Template:Convert to the global sea levels over another 1,000 years. On the other hand, the East Antarctic ice sheet is far more stable and may only cause Template:Convert - Template:Convert of sea level rise from the current level of warming, which is a small fraction of the Template:Convert contained in the full ice sheet. Around Template:Convert, vulnerable locations like Wilkes Basin and Aurora Basin may collapse over a period of around 2,000 years, which would add up to Template:Convert to sea levels. The loss of the entire ice sheet would require global warming in a range between Template:Convert and Template:Convert, and a minimum of 10,000 years.
GeographyEdit
The Antarctic ice sheet covers an area of almost Template:Convert and contains Template:Convert of ice.<ref name="AmosBBC2013">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> A cubic kilometer of ice weighs approximately 0.92 metric gigatonnes, meaning that the ice sheet weighs about 24,380,000 gigatonnes. This ice is equivalent to around 61% of all fresh water on Earth.<ref name="BEDMAP2-2013">Template:Cite journal</ref> The only other currently existing ice sheet on Earth is the Greenland ice sheet in the Arctic.<ref name="RobinsonUMC">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
The Antarctic ice sheet is divided by the Transantarctic Mountains into two unequal sections called the East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS) and the smaller West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS). Some glaciologists consider ice cover over the relatively small Antarctic Peninsula (also in West Antarctica) to be the third ice sheet in Antarctica,<ref name="IMBIE">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="AR6_WGI_AnnexVII">IPCC, 2021: Annex VII: Glossary [Matthews, J.B.R., V. Möller, R. van Diemen, J.S. Fuglestvedt, V. Masson-Delmotte, C. Méndez, S. Semenov, A. Reisinger (eds.)]. In Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Masson-Delmotte, V., P. Zhai, A. Pirani, S.L. Connors, C. Péan, S. Berger, N. Caud, Y. Chen, L. Goldfarb, M.I. Gomis, M. Huang, K. Leitzell, E. Lonnoy, J.B.R. Matthews, T.K. Maycock, T. Waterfield, O. Yelekçi, R. Yu, and B. Zhou (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA, pp. 2215–2256, doi:10.1017/9781009157896.022.</ref>Template:Rp in part because its drainage basins are very distinct from the WAIS.<ref name="Rignot2019">Template:Cite journal</ref> Collectively, these ice sheets have an average thickness of around Template:Convert,<ref name=NSFfactsheet>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Even the Transantarctic Mountains are largely covered by ice, with only some mountain summits and the McMurdo Dry Valleys being ice-free in the present. Some coastal areas also have exposed bedrock that is not covered by ice.<ref name="Swithinbank1988">Template:Cite journal</ref> During the Late Cenozoic Ice Age, many of those areas had been covered by ice as well.<ref name="Prentice1998">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Mackintosh2014">Template:Cite journal</ref>
The EAIS rests on a major land mass, but the bed of the WAIS is, in places, more than Template:Convert below sea level. It would be seabed if the ice sheet were not there. The WAIS is classified as a marine-based ice sheet, meaning that its bed lies below sea level and its edges flow into floating ice shelves.<ref name="BEDMAP2-2013" /><ref name="Hale2014">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The WAIS is bounded by the Ross Ice Shelf, the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf, and outlet glaciers that drain into the Amundsen Sea.<ref name="GoddardCryo">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Thwaites Glacier and Pine Island Glacier are the two most important outlet glaciers.<ref name="NASAUnderbelly">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Warming over the ice sheetEdit
Ice loss and accumulationEdit
Near-future sea level riseEdit
Weakening Antarctic circulationEdit
Ice loss from Antarctica also generates more fresh meltwater, at a rate of 1100–1500 billion tons (GT) per year.<ref name="IPCC AR6 WG1 Ch.9" />Template:Rp This meltwater then mixes back into the Southern Ocean, which makes its water fresher.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> This freshening of the Southern Ocean results in increased stratification and stabilization of its layers,<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="IPCC AR6 WG1 Ch.9" />Template:Rp and this has the single largest impact on the long-term properties of Southern Ocean circulation.<ref name="Li2023" /> These changes in the Southern Ocean cause the upper cell circulation to speed up, accelerating the flow of major currents,<ref name="Ocean warming and accelerating Sout">Template:Cite journal</ref> while the lower cell circulation slows down, as it is dependent on the highly saline Antarctic bottom water, which already appears to have been observably weakened by the freshening, in spite of the limited recovery during 2010s.<ref name="Silvano2018">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="Aoki2020">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="IPCC AR6 WG1 Ch.9" />Template:Rp Since the 1970s, the upper cell has strengthened by 3–4 sverdrup (Sv; represents a flow of 1 million cubic meters per second), or 50–60% of its flow, while the lower cell has weakened by a similar amount, but because of its larger volume, these changes represent a 10–20% weakening.<ref name="Lee2023">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="NOAA2023">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
While these effects weren't fully caused by climate change, with some role played by the natural cycle of Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation,<ref name="Zhou2023">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="Silvano-Meijers2023">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> they are likely to worsen in the future. As of early 2020s, climate models' best, limited-confidence estimate is that the lower cell would continue to weaken, while the upper cell may strengthen by around 20% over the 21st century.<ref name="IPCC AR6 WG1 Ch.9">Template:Cite book</ref> A key reason for the uncertainty is limited certainty about future ice loss from Antarctica and the poor and inconsistent representation of ocean stratification in even the CMIP6 models - the most advanced generation available as of early 2020s.<ref name="Bourgeois2022">Template:Cite journal</ref> One study suggests that the circulation would lose half its strength by 2050 under the worst climate change scenario,<ref name="Li2023">Template:Cite journal</ref> with greater losses occurring afterwards.<ref name="Logan2023">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
It is possible that the South Ocean overturning circulation may not simply continue to weaken in response to increased warming and freshening, but will eventually collapse outright, in a way which would be difficult to reverse and constitute an example of tipping points in the climate system. This would be similar to some projections for Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC), which is also affected by the ocean warming and by meltwater flows from the declining Greenland ice sheet.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> However, Southern Hemisphere is only inhabited by 10% of the world's population, and the Southern Ocean overturning circulation has historically received much less attention than the AMOC. Some preliminary research suggests that such a collapse may become likely once global warming reaches levels between Template:Convert and Template:Convert, but there is far less certainty than with the estimates for most other tipping points in the climate system.<ref name="GTPR2023">Template:Cite report</ref> Even if initiated in the near future, the circulation's collapse is unlikely to be complete until close to 2300,<ref name="Liu2022">Template:Cite journal</ref> Similarly, impacts such as the reduction in precipitation in the Southern Hemisphere, with a corresponding increase in the North, or a decline of fisheries in the Southern Ocean with a potential collapse of certain marine ecosystems, are also expected to unfold over multiple centuries.<ref name="Logan2023" />
Long-term futureEdit
Situation during geologic time scalesEdit
The icing of Antarctica began in the Late Palaeocene or middle Eocene between 60<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> and 45.5 million years ago<ref>Sedimentological evidence for the formation of an East Antarctic ice sheet in Eocene/Oligocene time Template:Webarchive Palaeogeography, palaeoclimatology, & palaeoecology ISSN 0031-0182, 1992, vol. 93, no1-2, pp. 85–112 (3 p.)</ref> and escalated during the Eocene–Oligocene extinction event about 34 million years ago. CO2 levels were then about 760 ppm<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and had been decreasing from earlier levels in the thousands of ppm. Carbon dioxide decrease, with a tipping point of 600 ppm, was the primary agent forcing Antarctic glaciation.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> The glaciation was favored by an interval when the Earth's orbit favored cool summers but oxygen isotope ratio cycle marker changes were too large to be explained by Antarctic ice-sheet growth alone indicating an ice age of some size.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> The opening of the Drake Passage may have played a role as well<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> though models of the changes suggest declining CO2 levels to have been more important.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
The Western Antarctic ice sheet declined somewhat during the warm early Pliocene epoch, approximately five to three million years ago; during this time the Ross Sea opened up.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> But there was no significant decline in the land-based Eastern Antarctic ice sheet.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
See alsoEdit
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- Bibliography of Antarctica
- Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf
- Geography of Antarctica
- List of glaciers in the Antarctic
- Ross Ice Shelf
- Subglacial lake
ReferencesEdit
Template:Antarctica Template:Authority control Template:Climate change