Stabilizing the West Antarctic Ice Sheet by surface mass deposition
- There is evidence that a self-sustaining ice discharge from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) has started, potentially leading to its disintegration. The associated sea level rise of more than 3m would pose a serious challenge to highly populated areas including metropolises such as Calcutta, Shanghai, New York City, and Tokyo. Here, we show that the WAIS may be stabilized through mass deposition in coastal regions around Pine Island and Thwaites glaciers. In our numerical simulations, a minimum of 7400 Gt of additional snowfall stabilizes the flow if applied over a short period of 10 years onto the region (-2 mm year(-1) sea level equivalent). Mass deposition at a lower rate increases the intervention time and the required total amount of snow. We find that the precise conditions of such an operation are crucial, and potential benefits need to be weighed against environmental hazards, future risks, and enormous technical challenges.
Author details: | Johannes FeldmannORCiD, Anders LevermannORCiDGND, Matthias MengelORCiD |
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DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aaw4132 |
ISSN: | 2375-2548 |
Pubmed ID: | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31328165 |
Title of parent work (English): | Science Advances |
Publisher: | American Assoc. for the Advancement of Science |
Place of publishing: | Washington |
Publication type: | Article |
Language: | English |
Date of first publication: | 2019/07/17 |
Publication year: | 2019 |
Release date: | 2021/01/14 |
Volume: | 5 |
Issue: | 7 |
Number of pages: | 7 |
Funding institution: | Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)German Research Foundation (DFG) [LE 1448/8-1]; European Regional Development Fund (ERDF)European Union (EU); German Federal Ministry of Education and ResearchFederal Ministry of Education & Research (BMBF); NASANational Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA) [NNX13AM16G, NNX13AK27G] |
Organizational units: | Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Institut für Physik und Astronomie |
DDC classification: | 5 Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik / 53 Physik / 530 Physik |
Peer review: | Referiert |
Publishing method: | Open Access / Gold Open-Access |
DOAJ gelistet | |
License (German): | CC-BY - Namensnennung 4.0 International |