Response of the Antarctic Ice Sheet to a climatic warming: a model study

Abstract

It is generally believed that the increasing C02 content of the atmosphere will lead to a substantial climatic warming in the polar regions. In this study the effect of consequent changes in the ice accumulation rate over the Antarctic Ice Sheet is investigated by means of a numerical ice flow model. In the model runs, temperature increases linearly with time during 100 years, and is kept constant afterwards. The results indicate that a climatic warming will probably lead to a sea-level lowering of some tens of centimetres in the next centuries. This is because for Antarctic conditions the increase in snow accumulation exceeds the increase in melting. This estimate does not take into account the effects of possible surging of parts of the Antarctic Ice Sheet and the response of the Greenland Ice Sheet (which may be quite different).