@article{ReeseGudmundssonLevermannetal.2017, author = {Reese, Ronja and Gudmundsson, Gudmundur Hilmar and Levermann, Anders and Winkelmann, Ricarda}, title = {The far reach of ice-shelf thinning in Antarctica}, series = {Nature climate change}, volume = {8}, journal = {Nature climate change}, number = {1}, publisher = {Nature Publ. Group}, address = {London}, issn = {1758-678X}, doi = {10.1038/s41558-017-0020-x}, pages = {53 -- 57}, year = {2017}, abstract = {Floating ice shelves, which fringe most of Antarctica's coastline, regulate ice flow into the Southern Ocean1,2,3. Their thinning4,5,6,7 or disintegration8,9 can cause upstream acceleration of grounded ice and raise global sea levels. So far the effect has not been quantified in a comprehensive and spatially explicit manner. Here, using a finite-element model, we diagnose the immediate, continent-wide flux response to different spatial patterns of ice-shelf mass loss. We show that highly localized ice-shelf thinning can reach across the entire shelf and accelerate ice flow in regions far from the initial perturbation. As an example, this 'tele-buttressing' enhances outflow from Bindschadler Ice Stream in response to thinning near Ross Island more than 900 km away. We further find that the integrated flux response across all grounding lines is highly dependent on the location of imposed changes: the strongest response is caused not only near ice streams and ice rises, but also by thinning, for instance, well-within the Filchner-Ronne and Ross Ice Shelves. The most critical regions in all major ice shelves are often located in regions easily accessible to the intrusion of warm ocean waters10,11,12, stressing Antarctica's vulnerability to changes in its surrounding ocean.}, language = {en} } @article{WenzLevermannAuffhammer2017, author = {Wenz, Leonie and Levermann, Anders and Auffhammer, Maximilian}, title = {North-south polarization of European electricity consumption under future warming}, series = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America}, volume = {114}, journal = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America}, publisher = {National Acad. of Sciences}, address = {Washington}, issn = {0027-8424}, doi = {10.1073/pnas.1704339114}, pages = {E7910 -- E7918}, year = {2017}, abstract = {There is growing empirical evidence that anthropogenic climate change will substantially affect the electric sector. Impacts will stem both from the supply sidethrough the mitigation of greenhouse gasesand from the demand sidethrough adaptive responses to a changing environment. Here we provide evidence of a polarization of both peak load and overall electricity consumption under future warming for the worlds third-largest electricity marketthe 35 countries of Europe. We statistically estimate country-level doseresponse functions between daily peak/total electricity load and ambient temperature for the period 2006-2012. After removing the impact of nontemperature confounders and normalizing the residual load data for each country, we estimate a common doseresponse function, which we use to compute national electricity loads for temperatures that lie outside each countrys currently observed temperature range. To this end, we impose end-of-century climate on todays European economies following three different greenhouse-gas concentration trajectories, ranging from ambitious climate-change mitigationin line with the Paris agreementto unabated climate change. We find significant increases in average daily peak load and overall electricity consumption in southern and western Europe (similar to 3 to similar to 7\% for Portugal and Spain) and significant decreases in northern Europe (similar to-6 to similar to-2\% for Sweden and Norway). While the projected effect on European total consumption is nearly zero, the significant polarization and seasonal shifts in peak demand and consumption have important ramifications for the location of costly peak-generating capacity, transmission infrastructure, and the design of energy-efficiency policy and storage capacity.}, language = {en} } @article{FeldmannLevermann2017, author = {Feldmann, Johannes and Levermann, Anders}, title = {From cyclic ice streaming to Heinrich-like events: the grow-and-surge instability in the Parallel Ice Sheet Model}, series = {The Cryosphere : TC ; an interactive open access journal of the European Geosciences Union}, volume = {11}, journal = {The Cryosphere : TC ; an interactive open access journal of the European Geosciences Union}, publisher = {Copernicus}, address = {G{\"o}ttingen}, issn = {1994-0416}, doi = {10.5194/tc-11-1913-2017}, pages = {1913 -- 1932}, year = {2017}, abstract = {Here we report on a cyclic, physical ice-discharge instability in the Parallel Ice Sheet Model, simulating the flow of a three-dimensional, inherently buttressed ice-sheet-shelf system which periodically surges on a millennial timescale. The thermomechanically coupled model on 1 km horizontal resolution includes an enthalpy-based formulation of the thermodynamics, a nonlinear stress-balance-based sliding law and a very simple subglacial hydrology. The simulated unforced surging is characterized by rapid ice streaming through a bed trough, resulting in abrupt discharge of ice across the grounding line which is eventually calved into the ocean. We visualize the central feedbacks that dominate the subsequent phases of ice buildup, surge and stabilization which emerge from the interaction between ice dynamics, thermodynamics and the subglacial till layer. Results from the variation of surface mass balance and basal roughness suggest that ice sheets of medium thickness may be more susceptible to surging than relatively thin or thick ones for which the surge feedback loop is damped. We also investigate the influence of different basal sliding laws (ranging from purely plastic to nonlinear to linear) on possible surging. The presented mechanisms underlying our simulations of self-maintained, periodic ice growth and destabilization may play a role in large-scale ice-sheet surging, such as the surging of the Laurentide Ice Sheet, which is associated with Heinrich events, and ice-stream shutdown and reactivation, such as observed in the Siple Coast region of West Antarctica.}, language = {en} } @article{ScheweLevermann2017, author = {Schewe, Jacob and Levermann, Anders}, title = {Non-linear intensification of Sahel rainfall as a possible dynamic response to future warming}, series = {Earth system dynamics}, volume = {8}, journal = {Earth system dynamics}, publisher = {Copernicus}, address = {G{\"o}ttingen}, issn = {2190-4979}, doi = {10.5194/esd-8-495-2017}, pages = {495 -- 505}, year = {2017}, language = {en} } @misc{GeigerFrielerLevermann2017, author = {Geiger, Tobias and Frieler, Katja and Levermann, Anders}, title = {Reply to Comment on: High-income does not protect against hurricane losses (Environmental research letters. - 12 (2017))}, series = {Environmental research letters}, volume = {12}, journal = {Environmental research letters}, publisher = {IOP Publ. Ltd.}, address = {Bristol}, issn = {1748-9326}, doi = {10.1088/1748-9326/aa88d6}, pages = {2}, year = {2017}, abstract = {Recently a multitude of empirically derived damage models have been applied to project future tropical cyclone (TC) losses for the United States. In their study (Geiger et al 2016 Environ. Res. Lett. 11 084012) compared two approaches that differ in the scaling of losses with socio-economic drivers: the commonly-used approach resulting in a sub-linear scaling of historical TC losses with a nation's affected gross domestic product (GDP), and the disentangled approach that shows a sub-linear increase with affected population and a super-linear scaling of relative losses with per capita income. Statistics cannot determine which approach is preferable but since process understanding demands that there is a dependence of the loss on both GDP per capita and population, an approach that accounts for both separately is preferable to one which assumes a specific relation between the two dependencies. In the accompanying comment, Rybski et al argued that there is no rigorous evidence to reach the conclusion that high-income does not protect against hurricane losses. Here we affirm that our conclusion is drawn correctly and reply to further remarks raised in the comment, highlighting the adequateness of our approach but also the potential for future extension of our research.}, language = {en} }