East Antarctic warming forced by ice loss during the Last Interglacial.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 38310088.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-024-45501-x and PMC identifier 10838265.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
During the Last Interglacial (LIG; 129-116 thousand years before present), the Antarctic ice sheet (AIS) was 1 to 7 m sea level equivalent smaller than at pre-industrial. Here, we assess the climatic impact of partial AIS melting at the LIG by forcing a coupled climate model with a smaller AIS and the equivalent meltwater input around the Antarctic coast. We find that changes in surface elevation induce surface warming over East Antarctica of 2 to 4 °C, and sea surface temperature (SST) increases in the Weddell and Ross Seas by up to 2 °C. Meltwater forcing causes a high latitude SST decrease and a subsurface (100-500 m) ocean temperature increase by up to 2 °C in the Ross Sea. Our results suggest that the combination of a smaller AIS and enhanced meltwater input leads to a larger sub-surface warming than meltwater alone and induces further Antarctic warming than each perturbation separately.