Journal
JOURNAL OF QUATERNARY SCIENCE
Volume 29, Issue 1, Pages 91-98Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1002/jqs.2683
Keywords
East Antarctic Ice Sheet; Last Interglacial; Southern Annual Mode; Southern Hemisphere Westerlies; Southern Ocean
Funding
- Australian Research Council [FT120100004, FL100100195, FT100100443]
- Australian Government's Cooperative Research Centres Programme through the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre (ACE CRC)
- Merit Allocation Scheme on the NCI National Facility at the ANU
- VUW Foundation
- GNS Science
- ANDRILL project
- Australian Research Council [FT100100443] Funding Source: Australian Research Council
Ask authors/readers for more resources
The stability of Antarctic ice sheets and their potential contribution to sea level under projected future warming remains highly uncertain. The Last Interglacial (135 000-116 000 years ago) provides a potential analogue, with global temperatures 2 degrees C higher and rates of sea-level rise >5.6m ka(-1), leading to sea levels 6.6-9.4m higher than present. The source(s) of this sea-level rise remain fiercely debated. Here we report a series of independent model simulations exploring the effects of migrating Southern Hemisphere Westerlies (SHWs) on Southern Ocean circulation and Antarctic ice-sheet dynamics. We suggest that southerly shifts in winds may have significantly impacted the sub-polar gyres, inducing pervasive warming (0.2-0.8 degrees C in the upper 1200m) adjacent to sectors of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS), which due to their geometries and connectivity to the Southern Ocean are highly sensitive to ocean forcing. We conclude that the EAIS potentially made a substantial, hitherto unsuspected, contribution to interglacial sea levels, and given 21st-century projections in the Southern Annular Mode and associated SHW migration, we highlight how pervasive circum-Antarctic warming may threaten EAIS stability.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available