Uncertainty in future solid ice discharge from Antarctica

Abstract

Abstract. Future solid ice discharge from Antarctica under climate scenarios based on the Extended Concentration Pathways is investigated with the Potsdam Parallel Ice Sheet Model (PISM-PIK), a shallow model with a consistent representation of the ice flow in sheet, shelves and the transition zone. Both the uncertainty in the climate forcing as well as the intra-model uncertainty are combined into a probability distribution for solid ice discharge from Antarctica until the year 2500 under the ECP scenarios: All simulations are performed for a 81-member perturbed-physics ensemble and the likely ranges of surface and ocean warming under the emission pathways derived from the results of 20 CMIP3-AOGCMS. The effects of surface warming, ocean warming and increased precipitation on solid ice discharge are separately considered. We find that solid ice discharge caused by enhanced sub-shelf melting exceeds that caused by surface warming. Increasing precipitation leads to a change from net sea-level rise to sea-level drop. Our results suggest that the history of the ice-sheet plays an important role with respect to projections of solid ice discharge. Although all climate-change-forced simulations begin with the year 1850, the ice discharge around 2000 is significantly smaller than observed. Observed changes in ice discharge are reached around 2077 under the ECP-8.5 scenario. During the subsequent century, ice discharge reaches up to 0.24 m.