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West Antarctic Ice Sheet and CO2 greenhouse effect : a threat of disaster

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Benn_2021_SGJ_WestAntarctic_CC.pdf (1.472Mb)
Date
14/02/2021
Author
Benn, Doug I
Sugden, David E.
Funder
NERC
Grant ID
NE/S006605/1
Keywords
Ice sheet instability
Antarctica
Climate change
G Geography (General)
T-NDAS
SDG 13 - Climate Action
SDG 14 - Life Below Water
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Abstract
Over 40 years ago, the glaciologist John Mercer warned that parts of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet were at risk of collapse due to the CO2 greenhouse effect. Mercer recognised the unique vulnerability of ice sheets resting on beds far below sea level (marine-based ice sheets), where an initial warming signal can initiate irreversible retreat. In this paper, we review recent work on evidence for ice sheet collapse in warmer periods of the recent geological past, the current behaviour of the ice sheet, and computer models used to predict future ice-sheet response to global warming. Much of this work points in the same direction: warming climates can indeed trigger collapse of marine-based portions of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, and retreat in response to recent warming has brought parts of the ice sheet to the threshold of instability. Further retreat appears to be inevitable, but the rate of collapse depends critically on future emissions.
Citation
Benn , D I & Sugden , D E 2021 , ' West Antarctic Ice Sheet and CO 2 greenhouse effect : a threat of disaster ' , Scottish Geographical Journal , vol. 136 , no. 1-4 , pp. 13-23 . https://doi.org/10.1080/14702541.2020.1853870
Publication
Scottish Geographical Journal
Status
Peer reviewed
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1080/14702541.2020.1853870
ISSN
1470-2541
Type
Journal article
Rights
Copyright © 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.
Description
DIB's contribution to this work is from the DOMINOS project, a component of the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration (ITGC). Support for DIB was provided by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC: Grant NE/S006605/1). ITGC Contribution No. ITGC:025.
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  • University of St Andrews Research
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/21690

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