A Variational LSTM Emulator of Sea Level Contribution From the Antarctic Ice Sheet

Abstract

AbstractThe Antarctic ice sheet (AIS) will be a dominant contributor to global mean sea level rise in the 21st century but remains a major source of uncertainty. The Ice Sheet Model Intercomparison for CMIP6 (ISMIP6) is an ensemble of continental‐scale models for studying the evolution of the AIS and projecting its future contribution to sea level. Due to their complexity and computational cost, ISMIP6 simulations are sparse and generated infrequently. Emulators are smaller‐scale models that approximate ISMs and enable experimentation and exploration into the drivers of sea level change. We introduce a neural network (NN) emulator to approximate the ISMIP6 ensemble, using a variational Long Short‐Term Memory (LSTM) with Monte Carlo dropout to quantify single‐projection uncertainty. The proposed NN emulator is compared to a Gaussian Process (GP) emulator on four criteria: accuracy of point estimates and predictive distributions of individual model projections, approximation of the ensemble projections, and model training time. The NN predicts more accurately on single projections, with a mean absolute error of 0.46 mm Sea Level Equivalent (SLE) versus 0.73 mm SLE for the GP, and has more accurate uncertainty estimates. The NN emulator also better approximates the ensemble distribution of ISMIP6 model projections, with a Kullback‐Leibler divergence of 18.26 versus 199.14 for GP at the projection year 2100. The NN enables more accurate experimentation with a reduced runtime, offering a new tool for understanding the important role of regional precipitation, ice sheet drainage systems, and interannual and longer timescale dynamics.