Genomic evidence for West Antarctic Ice Sheet collapse during the Last Interglacial

Abstract

AbstractThe marine-based West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) is considered vulnerable to irreversible collapse under future climate trajectories and its tipping point may even lie within the mitigated warming scenarios of 1.5–2 °C of the United Nations Paris Agreement. Knowledge of ice loss during similarly warm past climates, including the Last Interglacial, when global sea levels were 5–10 m higher than today, and global average temperatures of 0.5–1.5 °C warmer than preindustrial levels, could resolve this uncertainty. Here we show, using a panel of genome-wide, single nucleotide polymorphisms of a circum-Antarctic octopus, persistent, historic signals of gene flow only possible with complete WAIS collapse. Our results provide the first empirical evidence that the tipping point of WAIS loss could be reached even under stringent climate mitigation scenarios.One-Sentence SummaryHistorical gene flow in marine animals indicate the West Antarctic Ice Sheet collapsed during the Last Interglacial.